Where The Journey Begins
by SoloWraith
Summary: Arya wants to find somewhere to call home again, but she may need someone's help, and certainly she will need time. Set at the end of S1/beginning of S2, on the road north from King's Landing, after the death of her father. Canon in spirit, with some tweaking of details later on (a notable one being events at Winterfell).
1. Chapter 1

_Even the longest journey begins under one's feet. - Maester Eckhart, c. 300 BAL_

Her stomach clenched: possibly from hunger, fear, or a combination of both. But there the knot sat, tightly in her midsection, a reminder that nothing was as it had been; nothing would ever be as it had been. No more rambles under the tree-shade of the godswood, no covert archery sessions with her brothers in the practice range, no embroidering in the afternoon sunlight with her sister and the septa.

And while the last memory had not been one of which she was particularly fond, somehow knowing that it was all over, the thought of a future without these things in it, without her _father_ in it, made her throat knot as well as her belly.

The wagons rattled onwards, shaking her and the others about like apples in a barrel. Gripping knees to her chest, Arya wedged her feet against the planks and fixed her gaze on the wheel trails left behind them in the grass. Since the departure from Winterfell, the arrival at King's Landing and her subsequent need to escape attention of any kind, she'd learned to keep her eyes focused on objects rather than people.

No one had paid her too much attention yet, except for the fat boy with the stupid name, and she had Needle to keep her safe from him. She was more intimidated by the men in the caged wagon ahead of them, though she wasn't going to let them see so. Yet it was exhausting, being on guard all the time.

Right at this moment she felt someone watching. She ignored the scrutiny for a while, then cut her eyes sideways to see who it was. The blacksmith's apprentice, on the opposite side of the wagon, yet in its narrow space so close their legs were touching. His expression was closer to thoughtful than hostile, yet that was troubling in itself. With so little of the long journey behind them, Arya couldn't afford to have anyone thinking about her, wondering where she was from, or who she was.

Ned Stark's daughter.

Dead Ned Stark, former lord of Winterfell, former Hand of the King.

The ruthlessness of her morbid thoughts made her cringe. But she _needed_ to think. There was so much to plan for. She had to find a way to divide her mind into compartments, one for planning her immediate needs, one for those upcoming, one where the memories could be shoved until she had a place for them again.

She let her chin sink into her chest a bit and assumed a scowl which she hoped made her look fierce enough to remain undisturbed while she closed her eyes and rested. There had been little sleep over the past few nights along the road. Even if she had felt safe enough to do so, the noises made it difficult. Snores, groans, occasional screams of fear or even wordless terror coming from the others, sending her sharply upright in the dark, heart pounding.

But now, the wagon creaked and shook louder than the mumbles of its passengers, and Arya let her eyes close.

Someone kicked her foot, not with enough force to hurt, but it struck her instep, and she yelped, more from surprise than pain. She realized one of Yoren's guards was bawling at them to get out of the wagon.

"Piss break," somebody muttered. After this they would be expected to walk, switching places with the others who had been lagging behind the wagons. Arya lurched forward, but her legs cramped, and she nearly fell out of the wagon, or perhaps Hot Pie, the fat boy, had shoved her.

A hand caught her up short before she sprawled. Arya squirmed, hating the indignity of being held by the scruff of the neck as though she were a direwolf pup. Gendry, that was his name, the smith's apprentice. He set her on her feet again and let her go, turning away before she could say anything. It was probably just as well; they were never given much time and she needed more time than the rest. She scurried into the underbrush, Yoren's warning about taking her breaks in privacy always present in the back of her mind. Hastily she did what was necessary and pulled up her trousers, cinching them around her waist with the belt and pulling the shirt down. Then she raced back through the trees, but before coming into sight of the others, slowed to a lad's lazy saunter, which she'd been working on perfecting. For the male eye tended to see what it wanted to see, and was fooled by mannerisms as much as appearances; it was this she was counting on to keep her safe.

Hot Pie's curly-headed friend, Lommy, threw a pebble at her as she passed. Arya ducked, silently recalling and crediting her dance-master's tutelage for her quick reflexes. "Why d'you always run off to piss?" he called after her. Seven hells, she wouldn't have minded fielding that question so much if he hadn't yelled it for everyone to hear. She shot a glance about but no one looked especially interested.

"Because," she said, turning and walking backwards, "you stink too much to stand next to."

Lommy didn't seem chagrined. "You stink as much as I do."

This was probably true and so there was no need to refute it. Actually Arya longed for a wash and she had to stop herself from scrubbing her face and hands whenever they were near water; dirt helped to maintain her disguise.

"Both of you'd best shut it," Gendry advised, not unkindly.

Privately she rather agreed with him but with Lommy staring at her she felt a touch of truculence alighting in her soul. "I don't have to shut it."

"Just the same." He inclined his head to indicate one of Yoren's men approaching, and then, leaning back against a tree, bent to inspect the edge of his boot with unwarranted curiosity.

Lommy drifted off. Arya stood, uncertainly, a few paces from Gendry. She wasn't doing anything wrong. And they weren't prisoners, exactly. Were they? Nonetheless, Arya tried to imitate the young man's casual posture, deciding it was effective.

The guard surveyed them both for a moment. "Taken your pisses, have you? Get going then."

They lined up behind the wagon, where those who had walked the last few leagues were now climbing in. Soon they were moving again, the horses starting with a jerk. Arya plodded forwards, resigning herself to a march she knew would continue until nightfall. She didn't mind the walking much; her boots were her own and well-made, though they might not hold up to near a thousand leagues of travel. But each step brought her further from King's Landing, from the people who deserved retribution; each step conveyed her closer to Winterfell.

What sort of Winterfell she would find? She couldn't imagine it without her father. Didn't want to try. She hadn't cried for him. _Not today._ _Not yet._ Perhaps she never would. The hardness that felt a part of her now was almost pleasing, like the sharp taste of an unripe apple.

Arya was trying to pay attention to their surroundings, but after a while trees and grass and rocks began to blur together into an indeterminate mass, backed by the darkening sky. The air had a chill to it. She was glad now of the heavier jerkin she wore over her shirt. By the time the wagons slowed to a halt again her legs were numb with fatigue and cold. While people moved around her preparing to set up camp for the night she stood, wavering, for a moment.

The caged wagon bearing the three men was off to the side. One of the men leered at her while she stood there.

Her hand found Needle's hilt.

"Oi." Gendry tapped her on the back of the head. "Want to eat? Help me find firewood."

There was something about the brusque practical way he spoke to her that reminded Arya of her brothers. She fought back the surge of homesickness and followed him towards the treeline where they could scrounge for sticks. A wind-fallen tree nearby had left plenty of branches scattered about. She crouched to scoop some up, ignoring the ache in her knees and back.

"Ought to stay away from that lot," Gendry remarked over his shoulder as he wrestled with a larger section of the tree.

"I can look after myself." Arya's voice sounded scratchy to her ears beyond the masculine husk she tried to infuse it with.

He threw her a skeptical look.

"You've seen my sword. And you know I know how to use it," she challenged.

"Won't be enough if they get loose of that wagon. Girl like you—"

Arya dropped her armload of wood. She whipped her head around, but he hadn't spoken loudly and there seemed to be no one within earshot. Still, the shock of it spurred her into instant denial. "I'm not a _girl_."

He grunted and widened his eyes at her. "And I'm not a bastard."

"I'm telling you I'm _not_." Desperately she followed him, cutting in front when he would have started to haul the tree stump back towards the others.

"Look, it's nothing to me what or who you are, all right? Just watch it. Around the older ones. Them in the cage."

"You can't tell anyone." She shifted to an appeal, his matter-of-fact tone making her realize it was pointless to continue arguing.

"Like I said it's nothing to me."

"_Promise_, Gendry." Arya grabbed his arm, not sure if he would take offense at her using his name (though why should he, it was his name after all and if he was a bastard she couldn't think of any other titles to append).

He glanced down at her small hand on his forearm, and said, in a way that sounded more curious than challenging, "What are you going to do if I don't?"

"Stab you with Needle," she replied unflinchingly. Mainly because it was the first thing that came to her mind.

"Pretty feisty for someone so small. How old are you anyway?"

"First promise not to tell."

He sighed out as if she were exhausting him. "No one will know about you from me."

Arya let go of him. And then, because it seemed rude not to, she said, "Thank you," and added, "I'm twelve. Nearer thirteen," she supplied when he raised a dubious eyebrow.

"Well, like I said. Stay out of trouble."

There were irritated shouts in the distance for firewood and they both straightened. Arya wanted to tell him that he was being awfully bossy, considering they barely knew each other, but decided to leave it at that. She would see in the next while if he meant to keep his word, and then decide whether or not he was to be trusted.

Dinner, slopped into varying containers and passed around, was a greasy broth. At least it was hot from the cooking fire. Arya sipped at hers, holding the scarred wooden bowl in both hands and inhaling the steam. Darkness surrounded the journeyers as they sat or crouched in small groups around the tiny fires. This time of night was hard, too, when there was no conversation to be had nor activity to keep the mind quiet. She shuffled her feet in the ground, creating grooves in the dirt. Lommy and Hot Pie were complaining quietly of hunger. Someone was swearing about something. The cage bars of the wagon creaked as its prisoners shifted about within.

Yoren, grim-faced, walked by, keeping an eye on all of them for the first stretch of the night. As little enough sleep as they all got, Arya wondered when he got any. She slid down into the dirt with her back up against the tree stump that Gendry had dragged over.

The fire spat.

"Get to sleep, you maggots," one of the men ordered affably in their general direction. Coarse laughter echoed back from the trees.

Arya closed her eyes, still sitting upright. The red of the flames glowed through her lids. This was what it had been like for the past four nights since they had left King's Landing. Had it only been four nights? It seemed an age ago. A childhood ago.

She opened her eyes again. Gendry was adding wood to the flames across from her. He caught her gaze. His expression was unreadable.

Arya tucked her chin into her chest. She didn't know if sleep would come readily tonight. Certainly she was tired enough. She hunched down lower and closed her eyes again, her arms crossed protectively over her chest, the comforting length of Needle along her side.

* * *

Breakfast the next morning was—as it had been every day so far—a dry biscuit that tasted of wood shavings. Arya nibbled around the biscuit's edges. She had no appetite to speak of. It occurred to her to offer her portion to one of the other boys, but there was none among them she cared to show any particular kindness to. Except perhaps Gendry, and she didn't want him to think she was trying to win his silence with a bribe. If he was going to be silent on the topic of her femininity, and she hoped and prayed he was, she wanted it to be because he kept his promise to her.

Arya hated being lied to.

It was one of the reasons why she had a mistrust of adults in general and women in particular. In her experience, both groups had a penchant for well-meaning, face-saving lies.

Still, she didn't really want to finish the biscuit. She held it in her hand for a moment, considering.

"Eat it," Gendry said, noticing her reticence as he passed by with a shoulder-bag slung over his back, preparatory to moving out.

"I'm not that hungry," she said, feeling stroppy.

"How d'you expect to grow if you don't eat?"

She shrugged.

He shook his head and kept walking.

But she tucked the biscuit into a pocket for later because he was right.

Over the next few days of travel, once there were no indications that her secret had been revealed to any of their fellow journey-mates bound for the North, Arya began to relax a little. Yoren had warned her back in the city not to expect any special consideration from him, which meant he gave her no more than the cursory glances he gave the other boys. At mealtimes and night they were all watched, not as much once they were afoot or riding in the wagon. Hot Pie and Lommy were still a source of irritation, since they had taken to referring to her as "Arry the private pisser", but the harassment did not go far beyond verbal.

At least not until the day it started raining heavily in the morning and didn't show any signs of stopping. They had been marching in soaked clothing for most of the afternoon. Arya's unevenly shorn hair was plastered against her forehead in front, dripping down her neck in back. It was unusually cold, and the misty puffs of her breath were drowned by the downpour.

She thought she would never take the feeling of being warm and dry for granted again.

_All men are made of water_, she heard her dance master say. _Do you know this? If you pierce them, the water leaks out, and they die_.

She felt she was made of water. And that she might very well die if the cursed rain didn't stop.

The Kingsroad was no more than a dirty river now, or rather two small rivers where the wagon wheels cut through the mud. Arya batted hair out of her eyes. Just in front of her, she saw Lommy and Hot Pie share a sly look whose meaning she didn't have time to interpret before one of them stopped, stuck out a foot and tripped her.

She went tumbling, shoulder-first, into one of the mud streams. Her knee hit a rock and she lay there, limp, for a few moments, temporarily stunned by the flash of pain. The wagons kept rolling, as no one had noticed, and the two perpetrators shared a slightly uneasy laugh before darting after.

Arya didn't sit up. She felt mud dribbling into her ear. She blinked at the sideways landscape which had ceased to be sensibly divided into ground, treeline and sky and was instead a massive blur of grey and brown.

She heard a muffled oath through her unblocked ear.

"Get up."

She recognized, if not his hand, Gendry's sleeve thrust in front of her face.

_I'll be damned if I cry._

Taking hold of his arm, Arya let herself be pulled up.

Gendry steadied her and peered into her face. "All right?"

She chewed on the inside of her cheek so as not to let out an accidental snuffle.

He looked past her at the departing wagons.

"They'll stop," she said. "Once they see I'm not there."

"Why's that?"

She didn't care, he already knew past her disguise, it didn't matter any more and she was soaking and filthy and mad so she blurted, "Because I'm not Arry the orphan boy," and it felt good to say it, felt good to see his forehead crease in brief bewilderment.

"So who are you that they're gonna come back for you?"

Perhaps she couldn't blame him for the doubt in his voice but she said proudly into the falling rain, "I'm a Stark of Winterfell."

"A Stark of—that's a big lie for such a little girl."

Arya delivered the foulest epithet she knew, and there were quite a few in her repertoire, thanks to her brothers.

He only laughed. And then sobered. "You're serious. What's your name then?"

"Arya _Stark."_

"It was your father who was—"

She dropped her eyes.

"Hand of the King. If that's true what in seven hells are you _doing_ here?"

"I'm not going as far as the Wall."

The wagons' creaking was growing distant but the two of them still stood in the middle of the mud and rain on the quiet highway.

"You're being brought home then," Gendry said finally. "Some kind of escort for a—a lady." He ran a hand over his face. "Don't seem right."

She didn't have the energy for a proper shrug so she elevated one shoulder. There were a lot of things that weren't right. It wasn't right that her father was dead, that her sister was still trapped in the city, that her mother and brothers might not even know the truth of what had happened yet.

"You could take me back," she said. Pure impulse prompted her to say it.

Gendry looked in part desperation and exasperation at the departing trail of travelers. "I'm no escort for a lady neither."

"Do I look like a lady?" she demanded.

"You look like a harbor rat."

"See," she said, and while she had no desire to be thought of as a gentlewoman or paid silly compliments about her appearance, for some reason his honest appraisal rankled the tiny part of her that was, after all, nearly thirteen.

"M'lady," he added, presently.

She stalked muddily away, neither north or south on the road but straight up the opposing bank.

"Hey, wait. Arya."

He caught her arm between shoulder and elbow. "You'll freeze. It's almost dark. You need the fire."

He was right, of course. Again.

Gendry gestured with his head. "Let's go."

She allowed herself to be guided back down the bank. Her teeth chattered from the sodden clothing but he wrapped his hand around hers and they loped together after the wagons.


	2. Chapter 2

No one appeared to have noticed their brief absence from the group, nor comment when they returned to it. Camp was made, and a few fires constructed amidst the now slackening rain. The dampness of the wood caused the fires to smoke and had been judged by someone insufficient to create the typical meal of hot soup, so dry biscuits were once again passed around. Most of the recruits were too tired and wet to complain. Arya was about to refuse her portion but a glance from Gendry and she accepted it.

Later, her sleep was erratic. She kept waking up from cold. Though she was as close to one of the fires as she dared, her clothes were still stiff with mud.

It was on that night that everything fell apart.

Someone cried out. Arya stiffened, but didn't move. There were often cries during the nights; she herself had probably uttered her share. But then there was another. And a warning shout of rage from Yoren.

She shot upright.

There was fire, too much fire. Torches being thrown. The clang of iron and steel. Horses screeching.

Panic surged then, and she scrabbled around nearby, finding Needle's comforting length at her side. And a body a few paces away from her; Lommy's stupid curly head somehow still sleeping. She thrust a hand under his neck and shook him. Her fingers came away wet and shiny in the firelight. She gaped for a moment. His head lolled, helpless. Dead-fish eyes.

She tried to make sense of it and finally did.

The goldcloaks had caught up with them, and they were looking for her; they had to be looking for her. Someone grabbed at the back of her neck and she nearly screamed, but it was Gendry hauling her up. She scrambled with him over Lommy's body and towards the bushes. She tried to pop back up again to see what was going on but Gendry put a hand on her head and shoved her down.

"I want to see!" she insisted, furiously, batting his hand away. The wagons were burning. The cage was empty, but still had the horses attached. Arya writhed. "The horses—"

"Damn the horses," he muttered. He had a tight grip on her shoulder she couldn't squirm away from.

"I have to find Yoren!"

"You have to keep your own neck safe!"

Some of the recruits were fighting back, swords engaged with the goldcloak soldiers, but falling one by one, unable to hold their own. Arya watched in horror as she recognized Yoren receiving an arrow in the chest from a crossbow a short distance away. It was happening so suddenly and they were doing nothing to help. She made an attempt to lurch forward and Gendry's hand slid to her wrist, pulling her in the other direction. "Run," he said, and her legs responded to the urgency of the command even while her mind argued.

She raced alongside him, unable to see anything, crashing through the bushes. They ran until the shouts faded and the light from the fire had disappeared, and even then they could hear horses somewhere in pursuit, but they kept running. Arya's legs and lungs were burning in equal measure. Somehow Gendry kept her behind him while he shouldered through branches and bushes, his hand still around her wrist so tight that her fingers grew bloodless.

They stopped, panting, when they couldn't run any more. Arya sucked in gulps of cold night air. She kept seeing Lommy's dead eyes when she stared around them at the darkness. Her stomach was churning from the panic and activity.

Gendry had wandered away from her for a moment and now he came back, taking shape in the dim quarter-moon light. "There's a cliff. They'll have to take another way. Let's go."

Slowly now, they moved towards the cliff's edge, finding their footing as they escaped downward. The ravine yawned wide and open, peppered with rocks of all sizes and shapes, and it took a long while to reach the bottom. Moving along the dry riverbed, they could hear the snuffle of horses and see shadows of torches at the top. They ducked behind rocks, keeping still until the sounds and shadows subsided.

By mutual silent assent, at some point, they sank down near the riverbed under a tree. Side by side they sat, and Arya felt Gendry's arm next to hers, companionable, solid. She meant to stay alert and on guard as long as he did, until dawn if necessary, but after an hour or two of the engulfing tiredness, her fatigue proved too much and her head fell to his shoulder.

Dawn came, as it was wont to do after an exhausting night, impossibly soon.

"Gendry?"

"Mm."

"Sorry."

"What for?"

"I fell asleep." _On you_, she added mentally, since that was really the part she was apologizing for. But it was a little embarrassing to say.

"Idiot," he said, but it sounded more indulgent than mean. Like something Robb or Jon might have said.

They separated. Arya clambered at once behind another grouping of rocks because she desperately needed to pee. He disappeared for a few minutes too.

Once rejoining they took stock. She had only Needle and the clothes she was wearing. He had brought a bundle of his own things with him. She could see the odd shape of the bull helmet poking through the sack. She wasn't sure how he'd managed to hang on to all of it (and her at the same time) during last night's mad flight but she was glad. It made her feel more hopeful to have supplies, however limited. It meant they had resources. It meant they weren't totally without defenses.

And they had survived this first night, uncaptured. Unscathed. That was something, whatever the day might bring. It was probably silly, but she felt optimistic. Despite yesterday's memories. Despite seeing Yoren shot down, Lommy (whom she'd loathed, but still) lifeless.

She remembered something and rooted around in her pocket, retrieving a handful of crumbled biscuit.

"No telling when we'll eat again," he said, waving away her offer of half.

They could hunt, of course; but she knew there would be no time to spare for hunting until they put some distance between themselves and the goldcloaks.

Further up the ravine, there was water, where they drank, and Arya was able to wash Lommy's blood and several days' worth of accumulated dirt off her hands.

All that day they walked steadily. The sun appeared now and again, making a vague estimation of their direction possible. Arya knew they were somewhere in the Riverlands, but could only hope they were approximating a rough parallel of the road north. During one of their infrequent rest breaks, she asked Gendry whether he recognized any of the territory but he replied he had never been out of King's Landing his whole life. She was somewhat taken aback by this admission, considering the confidence with which he had been taking charge of the journey, but grew more philosophical as the day wore on. After all, without a map, it was not as if she could do any better herself.

By evening, when there had been no signs or sounds of obvious pursuit, they stopped.

Arya felt able to lie down anywhere and fall asleep within moments, yet there was food to be thought of. There had been plenty of water to drink throughout the day, but nothing else.

"I can catch something," she volunteered.

He looked doubtful. "You?" _A lady_, she almost heard the echo.

"I'm a better shot with a bow than my brother Bran," she retorted. "And back in the citadel, I was learning how to catch cats. I could absolutely catch a stupid rabbit."

Gendry wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. "If you say so. I'll make the fire."

Arya scrambled back up, feigning an energy she didn't really feel. It was important to forge his image of her as a not-lady, essentially the complete antithesis of—for instance—Sansa, who would surely sit around moaning about the tangles in her hair and rips in her dress if she were forced to undergo a cross-country march.

Still, Arya wouldn't have felt quite so confident about her ability to provide supper if they hadn't still been in the middle of the lush riverlands. Here was green, fertile ground and underbrush, sure to be home to plenty of small animals. She could hear the chatter of squirrels and the flutter of evening birds as she paced through the forest on tired feet.

It took the better part of an hour, but she returned to their impromptu campground, near the banks of a cold and clean rushing stream, with the carcass she had bragged of.

Gendry was nurturing a fire encircled by stones. He sat back in a crouch, looking mildly impressed when, without comment, she held out the dead animal. "All right, then, Arya Stark, you _can_ catch a stupid rabbit."

"We should have made a bet," she said, saucily.

"Nothing to bet with." He took the carcass from her and began to divest it of its fur. Shortly after, the meat was roasting over the flames. Gendry went off to dispose of the innards and wash his hands, then rejoined her at the fire.

Dark was closing in around them. Arya hugged her knees, in a trance of fatigue. But she had some questions, now that there was time for answers.

He had just speared a strip of meat on his knife and offered it to her. Around the stringy mouthful she said, "What are we doing now?"

"How's that." He was occupied in retrieving his own portion from the fire now. She was momentarily distracted by the way his fingers didn't seem to feel the flames.

"Well, are you coming with me to Winterfell?"

"I'm taking you to Winterfell, yes."

"And then what will you do?" _If we get there. If we make it that far._

He seemed to consider this question seriously for a few moments, while chewing.

"Will you go on to the Wall?" she persisted. "My brother Jon is there. Jon Snow...He's...like you," she added, lamely. "Natural-born." That hadn't been at all what she was going to say, she had meant to say something about how fond she was of her brother and indeed felt that she understood him more than Robb, Bran or Rickon, even if they only shared one parent...but it had somehow come out that way. She wanted to kick herself.

He gave her a side-long glance. "That's a fancy way to put it. Doesn't bother me if you say bastard."

Arya shrugged, still embarrassed by her own inability to say what she meant.

"How many brothers do you have?"

"Four," she said eagerly, grateful for the change of subject. "And a sister. Do you have any?"

Gendry shook his head.

"As for the Wall," he said eventually, "I'm not partial to the idea of freezing my tail off up there."

"It's not _that_ bad," she said, thinking that he was referring more to the North in general.

He pointed at the fire. "All I know is that's life, right there in those flames...that's what I'm used to."

"I like the cold," she said, in a small voice. They really were rather different, she realized. Maybe it was just loneliness, maybe she just missed the companionship of her family but for some reason, she wanted to find some common ground with him.

"Of course you do. Wolf sigil and all." He rescued the last of the meat from the fire. "Eat some more...and try and grow, will you, what do they feed you Stark females that you're so small?"

"My sister is tall." Arya haughtily accepted the meat. "Taller than most."

"Does she catch rabbits with her bare hands like you?"

"No. She's not like me. She's a lady."

Gendry looked at her for a moment. "Bet she couldn't have kept up with me today."

Something in her soul warmed in a comfortable way. "There's nothing to bet with," she reminded him.

He grinned at her.

It was strange how after everything had happened, after everything she had seen and endured, the loss of her father, the flight from the citadel, the privations since, that it could still feel good to have a simple shared joke.

Arya curled up beside a fallen log a few paces from him.

"D'you need my shoulder tonight?"

"No," she said, and closed her eyes, falling asleep to the crackle of the fire, which was over-scored by the susurration of the wind in the oaks above.

* * *

Gendry couldn't sleep.

He'd been staring at the sky and listening to the stream for some time. He was tired enough that he should have been sleeping—long ago. Mostly his mind was circling around on itself trying to decide what exactly he was doing out here.

He did not, normally, make decisions based on impulse. Up until recently his life had been a series of straightforward events and he had neither expectations nor desire for it suddenly to become exciting or dangerous. He was accustomed to waking early, working hard, going early to bed. He had no reason to believe that life would hold anything else for him.

He stayed away from trouble.

But here was trouble right here, in the form of an apparently innocent girl, a child really, sleeping a few paces from him.

He was not a fool. At least he wasn't enough of a fool not to _know_ trouble when he saw it.

So why had he told Arya Stark he was going to return her to her family's holdfast? When he didn't know he could do anything of the kind. Not that he didn't mean to try; he hadn't been able to leave her to the mercy of the goldcloaks and he wasn't going to abandon her now, but by his best reckoning there were still at least five or six hundred leagues between them and their destination. And he with only the few provisions he'd managed to smuggle thus far.

As far as an actual plan went, this one was lacking in virtually every way.

It was, all things considered, a shit plan.

He decided he would tell Arya so in the morning. And then she could decide what she wanted to do. If she was determined to continue, despite his pointing out of the facts, he wouldn't argue.

Well, maybe he would. Depending on how crazy it all seemed.

Gendry sighed and cradled his head behind his hands, shifting because a twig was poking into his shoulder.

He was just settling into the calm of sleep when Arya stirred and mumbled something incoherent. After a moment she was silent and he relaxed again, but then she let out a low, keening moan that had the sound of heartbreak to it; like a mother losing her child, or a child losing her parent.

It didn't stop, and he elbow-crawled over to her side, hesitant at first to touch her or say her name, but doing both, eventually. "Arya."

She began to tremble, and he wasn't certain if she was awake or not now, but he put an awkward, protective arm around her small body, and she turned towards his chest and pressed her face into it.

He muttered stupidly, ineffectively, by way of comfort. Things about it being all right, when it wasn't. Telling her not to cry, when he wasn't even sure if she was, and it didn't matter anyway, she had a right to cry if anyone did. He might even have said something about the stars...of all the stupid things.

But after what seemed like a long time, she stopped trembling and lay quiet and still, and her breathing evened out again into warm little puffs against his collarbone.

And even though there was another twig lodged in his ribcage, he stayed where he was because Arya had fallen back asleep.

* * *

After breakfasting on the remains of the rabbit, they were crouching by the stream to refill their one waterbag. He made himself say it: "I don't think we should go on."

She sank back on her heels, dark brows drawing together. "What?"

"We don't even know where we _are_ right now."

"So, we'll find out."

"Right, that's the first thing. But it'll take weeks, maybe months to get to Winterfell. We've no supplies. Ought to find somewhere closer, where you can send a message to your family."

Arya considered. "My mother's family is at Riverrun. If we are anywhere near Crossroads Inn, that is not so far." She stared into the stream for a few minutes. "You think we ought to go there first?"

"That would make sense," Gendry said, enunciating his words so she couldn't fail to miss the sarcasm.

She threw a pebble in his general direction.

"That didn't hurt."

"I would've picked a bigger rock if I wanted it to hurt."

Her pertness was amusing to him.

"D'you think you can find the way? I've never been this far north before."

"This isn't north yet," Arya said. "This is not even _close_ to north. Once we get back on the Kingsroad, then I'll know how far we've come, and I can find the river road that goes west." She sounded confident.

"So today we find the Kingsroad." Gendry scooped water in his hands and sluiced it over his head. It was cold as it dripped down the back of his neck. He shook his head like a dog.

"You missed a spot," Arya said, staring at him.

"A spot of what?"

"Dirt."

"Your whole _face_ is dirt, Lady Stark."

"Shut up. It's part of my disguise."

"Yeah, you're supposed to be a boy, not a piglet."

"Piglets," Arya replied, "are actually very clean. And one would think you would know that, since you were probably born in a barn."

"Not far off," he said, laughing at how she was trying to be haughty. "C'mon then, let's go if we're going. Which way do you reckon the road is?"

"East," Arya said, "-ish."

She stepped forth, head held high. Still smiling, he shouldered his bag and followed her.


	3. Chapter 3

Arya grabbed at the last branch that looked strong enough to bear her weight, and swung up further into the tree's heights, thinking how much easier it was to climb in trousers than dresses. She glanced downwards. Gendry was squinting up. "See anything?"

"Trees." She locked her arm around the trunk, using her other hand to shade her eyes from the noon sun.

Actually, the view afforded from here was just what she'd hoped it would be, showing a long valley to the east, and beyond, a break in the trees, a winding dark shadow off in the distance that could easily be the Kingsroad. Of course it could also be a section of river.

There was more wind at this height and it blew strands of hair about her face. She shook them away and peered a while longer at the potential road. It was too far to be completely certain.

Carefully she began the descent. Gendry, waiting at the base, took her hand and helped her to jump from the last branch. "Besides trees."

"I think we're headed the right way." Arya dusted off her palms which were sticky with sap. She rubbed them, harder, on her trouser knees. "I think I saw the road. But I don't think we'll reach it today. Tomorrow, maybe."

By late afternoon they had traversed most of the valley, a heavily treed plain, and came up short upon the banks of a wide and busily rushing river. Arya felt her spirits momentarily sink as she studied it, wondering if this was what she had seen from the vantage point of the tree.

There was no bridge nor obvious crossing place, even after they checked a few hundred yards both north and south along the banks.

"Might have to get your feet wet," Gendry said.

"I'm not afraid of water."

"Well, good, because I don't want to carry you across."

She made a face. Once again he had evidently forgotten she was not Sansa.

While Gendry looped his sack of supplies through his belt, fastening it more tightly, Arya waded a few steps in, clenching her teeth as the cold water rushed past her knees. He followed her and she was rewarded by his own hiss of surprise.

"It's not that bad."

"Not that bad?" He sent a handful of water skittering across the roiling surface in her direction.

A third of the distance across, the bottom dropped away. Arya sank to her shoulders. Her teeth felt like they would chatter out of her jaw. She took a breath, clamped her mouth shut and began to swim.

She counted herself a strong swimmer but she had to work harder than expected to make any headway. Turning her head several times to check on Gendry, she saw he was much further down, having even more trouble than she was. She was relieved when she crawled out of the water and up the opposite bank, to look back and see that downriver, he was almost at the shore. Dripping and shivering, she darted down to meet him. He took the hand she thrust out in a companionable manner, gave her a wry face and collapsed on his back on the rocky slope.

"That was cold," he said eventually.

"But we're clean," she said, hugging her wet legs and examining her palms, now free of sap.

"There goes your disguise."

"How did you know I wasn't a boy, anyway?"

He was silent, his arm across his face, then shrugged. "Most people don't see what they're looking at."

"Do _you_?"

"Mostly. I try to."

"Why do you think that is? About most people."

"You ask a lot of questions."

"I like knowing things."

"I don't."

"Really?" This was baffling to Arya. But perhaps if you couldn't read or have the benefit of sitting at lessons with a maester, you didn't know what interesting things there were to be learned.

"I like to know a lot about a few things," Gendry clarified, eventually.

"I like to know a little about _everything_."

This sounded much more supercilious once uttered than it had seemed in her head, and for an instant she thought he might be offended.

But after another moment he said only—"That's because you're young."

"You're not old," she said, rolling her eyes.

"I've seen five more namedays than you anyway."

She changed the subject. "I'm freezing."

He rolled over on an elbow. "Want a fire before we go on?"

Gendry could make a fire out of nothing. Once in a sheltered spot, with a few sticks of wood, he soon had a warm blaze alight. It was something like magic. It seemed to Arya a wonderful skill to have and she said so. He brushed the comment off by saying it would be a poor smith who couldn't start a burn.

Arya squirmed so close to the flames that the knees of her trousers steamed. She'd pulled off her outer jacket in order to let her linen shirt dry faster. Gendry had done the same, his arms exposed by the sleeveless vest.

_I wonder if he could beat Robb or Jon in a wrestle_, she thought irrelevantly, and wondered, which took more strength: making swords or wielding them?

"You going to catch another rabbit for supper?" he asked.

"When I'm dry."

Gendry stretched out on his back. "Tell me when you go."

"Are you going to _nap_ while I fetch dinner?" she demanded, faintly outraged by this display of laziness.

"Didn't get much sleep last night," he said mildly, closing his eyes again.

She felt guilty, realizing she was at least partly to blame for that. She hadn't meant to disturb him but she'd been having the dream about her father's last moments. _Shoving her way through the assembled bodies, trying to get a proper glimpse, one last look, of his face. Yoren grabbing her, pressing her face against his chest. The birds scattering overhead. The way the earth had been spinning so madly and then it just seemed to—stop._

She swallowed. She never wanted to dream that dream again. But even if she never did, she would also never forget it. Any of it.

* * *

"_There's_ the road," Arya said with satisfaction.

Yesterday she had captured a quail (even easier to sneak up on than a rabbit), and they had rested and feasted and taken an early night. The following morning they had set out east again and now, after a few hours, the Kingsroad was clearly visible from the top of the hill under their feet.

With renewed energy they jogged the rest of the distance down the hill towards the highway. It was flat and well-traveled here, and Arya believed, taking the time to study the surrounding scenery, that they were not far off from the Trident River and Crossroads Inn.

They walked alongside the road, leaping into the ditch once when they heard riders approaching. The trio of horses galloped by and Arya stared after them. She wanted to know how far they had yet to go, but it didn't seem worth the risk to hail strangers just to ask.

However, when by early afternoon a farmer and his wagon rolled up behind, soon to overtake them, Arya thought they should take the chance. Gendry was just moving aside, shadowing his face, when she jumped out alongside the wagon. She heard him hiss at her to get back, but it was too late, the farmer had already slowed the horse.

"Would you be going to the Crossroads?"

"Aye, taking goods up. Be there by evening, I expect."

"Could we ride in the back of the wagon?"

"It'll slow my mare down some. Got any coin?"

She shook her head. "But we'll help unload the goods once we get there. I promise."

"Promise of an urchin's not worth much," the man said, but there was a gleam of amusement in his eyes at her earnestness. "Got nothing for surety? I'll return it once the wagon's unloaded, like you say."

Arya ignored Gendry's obvious discomfort with the situation, took a breath, and held out Needle. "Castle-forged steel," she said.

"Don't know much about weaponry," he said, giving it a cursory inspection. "But all right then, tuck it along the floorboard here and climb in back."

She hated to part with Needle even if only for a short while but it would spare their legs for a time. She did as he said.

The wagon started again with a jolt as the farmer applied the reins to the mare's back.

Gendry walked behind, giving her a dark look.

"Come on," Arya urged, dangling her legs.

"I don't want trouble." But after another moment he scrambled alongside. Together they watched the road wear away behind them to the south.

By the time the evening sun was slipping down behind the trees, they were rolling over the Trident and coming up towards the marketplace centered around the Inn. Arya was eager to fulfill her end of the bargain and began unloading the contents of the wagon almost as soon as it came to its final stop. She left the heavier barrels for Gendry and took smaller sacks and parcels, carrying them up to the side entrance of the building indicated. When it was done the farmer had a smile for her and indicated she should retrieve Needle, which she did with alacrity. Then he tossed her a few coins.

She was thrilled, though Gendry seemed less so. "It'll buy us supper," she argued, trotting to catch up with him as he strode in the opposite direction.

He swung so abruptly she nearly ran into him. "All right." He held up both hands. "Look, I need to do something. Can you stay out of trouble for a few minutes?"

Arya heard the tension in his voice and backed up immediately. The hurt must have showed on her face, because he looked undecided for a moment. "Just—wait for me by the bridge."

She nodded mutely.

Without looking back, she crossed the road and began to walk back in the direction of the stone bridge. She kept her head down but her eyes open, unafraid to be left alone but baffled by his dismissing her. Thus far they'd been operating as equals, the banter notwithstanding. She thought of him as a companion, not her superior, just because he was older, and it seemed uncharacteristic for him to discount her in that way.

She turned the few coins over in her hand, pressing them into the flesh of her palm. Perhaps she was being foolish, when just for that moment she'd imagined them sitting at a table together like adults, having some food that they hadn't needed to hunt and prepare for the fire, having a break from the flight, from the journey.

"Stupid," she muttered resentfully, unsure which of them she meant.

But she hung around the bridge, as she had been bidden, for the greater part of an hour. By this time dusk had come and the evening chill was upon the air. People were walking faster, horses were whinnying for their feed, soldiers were growing louder and more ribald. No one paid her scrawny urchin boy-self much attention.

Her stomach was growling.

Gendry appeared, striding out of the darkness. "Come on," he said, grabbing her hand, and it was hard to remain sullen because despite the fact she was still vexed, she was also glad to see him. He hustled her through the streets to the inn, where she had stayed with her father and sister, and King Robert's party, on their way down. So many weeks ago, but she recalled it well, mostly because it had meant the loss of Mycah and Nymeria.

Gendry brought her up a set of back stairs that creaked under their feet and down a narrow open-air hallway that ran the length of the inn. A man, drunk or unconscious, was sprawled across their path and they had to step over him to get by. Gendry didn't let Arya pause. He had a firm grip on her hand and another on her shoulder. They stopped in front of one of the age-blackened doors and Gendry opened it with a key.

Somewhat confused, she stepped tentatively in. The room was tiny and smelled rather stale. There was a bed with a straw pad and blanket, against the far wall, and a spattered candle burning in a sconce.

"We're sleeping here?"

"Not what you're used to, I expect," he said, a little gruffly.

It was of course nothing like the spacious room indoors that she had shared with Sansa on their way down, yet that wasn't what was bothering her.

"But how..."

"Want to go down and eat?"

Arya nodded. She was hungry. On the road her appetite hadn't troubled her much, but coming up the stairs, with the odors of the busy inn kitchen drifting up from the windows below, she realized how welcome a hot meal would be.

The inn's common room was bustling with men and women of all kinds coming and going. After the silence of their nights spent outdoors, the din of laughter and raillery was rather overwhelming. Arya stayed in Gendry's shadow as they walked through the tables, a little nervous since it was within the realm of possibility that someone, a serving person perhaps, might still remember her as Lord Eddard Stark's younger daughter.

Gendry found them a table and benches towards the back. She was grateful when the arrival of warm rounds of bread and a herb-scented river trout meant that they could focus their attention on the food. There was some drink in an earthenware jug, and though she wasn't sure what it was, it tasted sweet and strong on her tongue and she drank thirstily until Gendry pushed it away and said he didn't think she ought to have too much.

Then there was some sort of spicy custard tart that they shared, and she was finally, deliciously full.

He left some coins on the table and nodded at her that they were going.

She held her tongue as they went outside and up the stairs but once in the privacy of the room, faced him accusingly. "You never had money, back when we were with the others."

"That's right."

"So where did it come from?"

Arya saw now, in his brief silence, that his sack of personal effects was considerably smaller.

"Where's the helmet?" she demanded, awareness growing.

"Sold it."

"You did not." But she knew he had.

He shrugged. "We needed the coin."

Arya liked the way he said 'we', but remained miffed; for some reason she had felt a proprietary attachment to that bull's head helmet ever since she'd first seen it. "I _had_ money for supper."

"Not enough for a room too and in case you've forgotten we still have travel ahead. Near a month. I asked at the armorer's."

Arya played with the hem of of her shirt. It still didn't sit right with her but there was nothing else she could say. In an area as congested as the Crossroads, it wouldn't be safe to spend the night outside under a hedgerow.

"Maybe we can get it back someday," she said, but flinching internally at how hollow the offer sounded.

"Sure." He was not fooled. But his voice was gentler. "Let's get some sleep."

"I'll sleep on the floor," she volunteered. The bed was hardly wide enough for two and though she might have considered sharing it with a brother, he wasn't her brother.

"We can take turns," he said. "You sleep first. I'll sit up for a while."

Arya scrambled into the bed, tucking the blanket down against the rough flattened straw, and settled herself in. Despite the steady rumble of noise from outside and the inn below, she fell asleep rather quickly. When she awoke a number of hours later to the early dawn light filtering in through the shuttered window, Gendry was still on the ground, not having woken her to switch with him.

She felt a little guilty. But only a little. Because after all it wasn't as if the straw pad had been a featherbed, either.

* * *

The first few days after leaving Crossroads Inn and heading west to Riverrun were uneventful, enabling them to cover a lot of distance early on. Before they left they had bought a few provisions, including blankets, bread and other various foodstuffs. The food meant they could walk until late into the evening, without needing to hunt or make a fire. Hunting was easier in any case, since Gendry had casually given Arya a slingshot on their first day out from the inn, and she had been practicing on squirrels and snakes as they walked. At short range, she was close to becoming as proficient with the weapon as she had been with the bow in Winterfell.

"Could I kill someone with this?" she asked, as they walked parallel to the River Road.

"Should I be worried?"

"Not for yourself, stupid." She gave him an affectionate punch to the bicep and noted that his arm felt like rock. It actually stung her knuckles.

"I guess you could if you hit them in the right place."

"Like the head," she said, considering the possibilities.

"Got someone in mind then?"

"More than one."

He was silent for a few moments and she felt defensive. "What?"

"I'm just thinking the sooner we get you safe in a holdfast and back in a dress, the better."

He sidestepped just in time so that she couldn't hit him again.

"What does a _dress_ have to do with anything?"

"It's..." he shrugged, and now he was the one to look defensive. "You need to be—where you're supposed to be. You're a lord's daughter..."

It brought her back to her father saying: _You will marry a high lord and rule his castle. And your sons shall be knights and princes and lords..._

_No. That's not me._

She walked faster.

"Arya."

"No."

Catching up, he reached for her elbow but she jerked away, not caring if he thought her childish for it.

"I thought you were different than that, Gendry. I should have known you're just another one of those people who wants me to sit in a rocking chair working on embroidery." She whirled on him.

He rubbed the back of his hand along his stubbly jaw and looked uncomfortable. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"My brothers can avenge my father's murder, but I'm supposed to hide away in a castle till it's all over, that's what I'm talking about!"

"I never said _hide_. Your brothers have enough on their minds, don't they? You want to be one more thing they have to worry about?"

She turned away from him again, then said over her shoulder, "I won't be useless."

"You won't be any good to anyone dead."

"I can take care of myself!" she nearly shouted.

"Maybe you can," he said, as quietly as she had been loud. "But you shouldn't have to."

Arya swallowed a further retort. There was no sense in continuing to argue. She was hurt and angry, and he didn't understand. She was used to not being understood, but somehow it was truly different now, the world was turned on its end and she couldn't believe anyone would expect her to return to her old way of life. A lord's daughter, indeed. A dead lord's daughter, that was all she was.

She marched ahead, keeping him behind her for the rest of the day.

Camp was uncomfortable that night for the first time since they'd fled from the others. Gendry asked if she wanted a fire. She said that she did not, largely because she wasn't ready to look at his face. So they bedded down in a quiet glade just off the road, where several stands of trees provided cover.

Arya chose the base of one of the trees, where the ground was soft with thick moss, wrapped her blanket around her shoulders and lay down. As the hours had passed her anger had faded, but not the sense of injury. And the sense that if they weren't talking, something wasn't right. She didn't want to be at odds with him, not because she needed him to bring her to Riverrun—she truly believed she was capable of looking after herself as she had claimed—but because it just didn't...it wasn't them. It wasn't her and Gendry, to be fighting. They were partners.

She watched out of the corner of her eye to see if he chose a sleeping spot any farther away than normal.

He shook out his blanket and lay down.

Arya stared through the leaves at the sky.

_I hope he's not waiting for me to apologize. Because I won't. Not because I'm stubborn_ (she was) _but because I never said anything I should be sorry for._

She wrapped the blanket tighter around her, up to her chin. She counted leaves, losing track somewhere around two hundred.

She pursed her lips and blew a quiet breath up into the air.

"Go to sleep." He didn't sound mad.

"I can't."

"It's late."

"I know."

"You want to talk then."

She smiled into the blanket. "Promise you'll never tell me to wear a dress again."

"Funny promise."

"It's what I want."

"I will if you promise to stay out of trouble."

"Not fair. Yours is easier than mine."

"Mm."

"You know," she said after a bit, "My father used to say, never make a promise when you're happy."

"Likely good advice. Now can you go to sleep?"

"Maybe." She was already feeling her limbs becoming heavy, while the uncertainty in her stomach had eased. Rolling on her side, she shifted a little closer to him. Because he wasn't quite within arms' reach where he should be.


	4. Chapter 4

As fate or ill-fortune would have it, the day the goldcloaks caught up with them was at a moment where there was nowhere to hide.

Thus far they had been following the Red Fork of the river itself rather than the road, particularly by day. Tracking the meanderings of the river meant they couldn't cover quite as much ground, but it seemed the safer choice. Yet when, on one afternoon where from the vantage point of a hill they could see the road stretching straight through a lightly treed plain, Arya proposed they follow it.

Gendry was amenable to the idea and so they went down. Low grasses, wispy like a child's hair and bleached the color of bone, waved along the roadside. The few trees here were thin and tall. Arya was distracted as she walked, a song circling through her head whose forgotten lyrics were inexplicably nagging her, while the grasses were whispering against her boots. Out of impulse she said—"Do you know this—" and hummed a few bars of the tune.

He looked at her with a wry face. "Don't hear much music in the smithy but the sound of steel and stone."

"You must have gone out sometimes, to the arms, or wherever," she said, with some asperity.

He inclined his head. "Though, not a chance those would have been songs _you'd_ ever heard."

"I have four brothers," she reminded him. "And I paid attention."

"Course you did."

"Told you I liked to know a lot of things."

The rhythmic thudding of horses' hooves vibrated across the ground and through the air. Startled she hadn't heard them sooner, Arya turned, at the same moment feeling unease stir in her belly.

There were two of them appearing in the distance behind. Without discussion, she and Gendry darted off in opposite directions, she to the east, he to the west. It was here she saw her mistake in coming down to the plain—cursed luck, as there was nothing but flat land either way.

She ran anyway, she was damned if she was going to make the capture easy on them. The days of walking had strengthened her legs and she loped like a swift wolf along the ground, grass flashing by under her feet.

The goldcloak who was in pursuit caught up and followed so close that Arya could hear the horse's nostrils sucking in air as it cantered behind. Darting and weaving couldn't enable her to get away. Fatigue was catching up with her, too, as she swerved, and a touch of panic ignited in her. Then it was over. The rider vaulted off the horse a moment after he'd slowed the beast and knocked Arya down with a sweep of his arm.

What wind was left in her lungs seemed to evaporate as she hit the ground. But she rolled, though her chest felt like it was caught in a massive clenching fist, and drew her knees up.

He came over to her, and Arya wasn't sure if he only meant to grab her and haul her up but she was ready, even though she had not yet been able to breathe. The length of Needle was pressed unseen alongside her right leg and as he bent over, she shoved the sword with a wordless prayer-cry somewhere into his lower abdomen.

His eyes were alarming then, seeming to bulge beyond reason. His tongue came out, and she gasped for air at the same time, because the shock of hitting the ground still felt like her heart had temporarily stopped.

Arya yanked back on Needle, but the weapon didn't come out right away. She put up her leg and braced it against his thigh and tugged harder, and while he staggered to the side, she rolled away.

She thought she might vomit.

Though she'd done this before, to the boy in the stables, it hadn't been quite so intentional then.

The horse was pacing in the distance, lathered. Arya glanced at the goldcloak now lying on the ground, curled awkwardly around himself. His mouth opening and closing, perhaps trying to breathe, perhaps cursing her.

She couldn't linger to find out. Wiping Needle along her trousers, she ran for the horse and swung up on its back. It skittered sideways at the unaccustomed feel of its rider, but she dug in her knees and urged it back towards the road. She had to find out what had happened to Gendry and the other soldier.

There was silence when she got back to the road. Arya dismounted and looped the animal's lead around a tree, then darted westwards through the grasses, trying to keep as low as possible.

Gendry must have been able to run farther than she had because although she saw the other horse before too long, it seemed an age before she saw the two figures. Gendry had been at the end of the goldcloak's sword, but when they spotted her coming—here too, there was no place she could conceal her approach—the man grabbed the smith's apprentice and held the sword to his throat, a handful of Gendry's black hair in his other hand.

Arya stopped, two dozen paces out.

"Let him go," she said, her voice high but clear.

Oddly she had a moment to feel pride that Gendry looked so calm, even though his eyes were telling her she shouldn't have come back for him.

Which was nonsense. He would have come back for her, of _course_ she would come back for him.

"_You_ go, and I won't follow you, little shit," the soldier replied. She could see he wanted to know where his compatriot was. He was glancing around, behind her, uncertain what had taken place. He might have been a shade younger than the one she had stabbed, but he looked just as mean.

Arya was confused by this statement, however. "_I'm_ the one you're after."

Gendry closed his eyes briefly. In her imagination she heard him say _Arya no_.

The goldcloak spat. "It's the bull's head we're after," he said. "This one fits the description. You were seen taking the River Road."

"But he's just an armorer's apprentice," Arya said, reasonably, though the blood was pounding in her head.

"Not just that—" he displayed the indulgent grin of someone privy to a greater amount of information—"this is King Robert's bastard, this is." He shook Gendry's shoulder.

For an instant Arya wondered how Gendry could not have told her that and then she realized, seeing his face, that he hadn't known either. In any case there was no time to think, to accept or reject the words. The goldcloak took a tighter hold on Gendry and brandished the sword again. "Now get along with you, before I change my mind and leave you in a ditch for the birds."

_Not today._

She whipped the slingshot out from under her shirt, took the barest split-second of aims and let the stone, already tucked carefully in the fabric of the sling, fly.

The stone met its target somewhere in the middle of the man's face. He dropped his sword and released Gendry in the same motion, falling to his knees, both hands clutching at his face while from his throat came uncomprehending moans of pain.

Arya stared, impressed and shocked by the efficacy of the action. She could see a trickle of blood seep through his fingers as he cursed her. He took one stumble forward and she stood rooted, fascinated.

Gendry scooped up the fallen man's sword, his mouth contorted with disgust or pain of his own, and brought it down swiftly using the arms and shoulders of a strong young blacksmith.

There was silence.

The bleached-bone grass under the body began slowly to change color, turning a deep red.

Nervously, somewhere not far off, the second horse whinnied, breaking the stillness.

Gendry tossed the sword on the ground.

"You should keep it." Arya heard her voice crack. But a decent sword was hard to come by. She could hear Yoren saying _good steel is always needed_. She wondered when she had gotten so damnably practical.

He shot her a look she couldn't interpret. She knelt, took the sword by the handle and dragged it through the grasses, wiping off the blood.

He walked around in a circle behind her for a few moments, then said—"Where's the other one?"

"Back there." She shook her head. "I stabbed him, I don't know if he's dead or not."

She hesitated for a moment and then knelt by the body of the goldcloak, since she needed the scabbard and belt if they were to take the sword. She reached for the buckle and tried not to make a face as she worked it free. Gendry came, and grimacing, pushed her aside. "Let me do that."

He pulled the belt from under the body and soon had it loose. But then he stood, holding it, still with that look of distaste on his face.

Arya approached him, uncertainly. She reached for the belt, and he relinquished it. He stood stiffly, holding his arms out, while she slipped under them and wound the belt around his waist, bringing it through the buckle. She had performed this task for her father, for her brothers, many times. But she was nervous now. Her fingers felt numb although it was not cold.

His breathing was controlled.

She glanced up at him.

"Bad luck to wear that of a dead man if you don't have to," he muttered.

"We have to," she encouraged, giving his chest a hesitant pat.

Gendry tipped his head up to the sky and drew in a long breath.

"Are you all right?" Arya said, with more timidity than she would have liked. _King Robert's bastard._ It made no sense. He was the son of the king...the blustering, ruddy-faced man who had been her father's friend...who had started all the trouble and tragedy in her family by calling Ned Stark away to King's Landing...by dying and starting a war over succession.

"Let's find the horses and get out of here."

"Take the sword." Arya held it out, trying to do so steadily but the weapon was too heavy for her and her arms trembled.

He took it and slid it into the sheath.

She thought it looked natural, good on him, but didn't dare say so. Perhaps he didn't want to bear arms, or was it just this particular weapon he was superstitious about? But she was as eager to be on their way now as he.

And with the unexpected gift of the horses. Worth the cost of the two lives, she thought, once again surprised by her own ruthlessness.

As the afternoon was at the indefinable point of merging into evening, they prodded the animals into a bone-shaking gallop westward along the River Road. They rode a long way, until nearly dark, an unvoiced need to put as much distance between themselves and the scene of the goldcloaks as possible.

Gendry took the horses down to the river for watering and brought them back up. He had, Arya saw, unburdened them of all but the most necessary elements of their tack so they were not so obviously the property of the city watch.

"They look better without all that frippery. What did you do with it?"

"Chucked it in the bushes."

She nodded her approval. "I'll rub them over." At Winterfell there were plenty to perform such tasks, but her father had insisted she know the basics of proper animal care and husbandry.

"Want a fire?"

Again she nodded, and turned to apply herself to the activity of scrubbing the horses' damp hides. After, she tied the animals up nearby, then came and crouched by the fire.

"We got any food left?" he asked.

"Some bread."

It was dry and stale now, but rendered edible by toasting over the fire.

"You want to talk about today?" he asked.

She swallowed the last of her bread and shook her head.

"Liar," he said tolerantly.

"I don't. Seems like you do, though."

He elevated one shoulder as if to say he didn't care.

Arya stretched herself out on the ground, propping herself up on one elbow. "What they said. About—your father."

"Might not be true."

"But they didn't want me. They were after you. Why would they come after you if it wasn't true?"

Gendry poked the fire with a stick.

"It's strange," she said.

"What is?"

"Our fathers were friends." _And now they're both dead_.

"Doesn't matter what they were," Gendry said, a little sharply. "If he even was my father, it doesn't matter. Doesn't change my life any."

"Unless they keep hunting you," she said, watching his face.

"Maybe I'll end up at the Wall after all," he said. "They can't follow me up there."

She didn't know about that, but she liked the idea of him being with Jon, with someone to look out for him, watch his back. It wouldn't be so bad if Gendry was one of the Night's Watch. At least then he would be safe.

Still, what was _she_ supposed to do?

If only women could take the black. She, Jon and Gendry would all be sworn brothers. They would face whatever lay beyond the wall together, defending those south of it...

For a moment she let herself drift away in the fantasy and then she told herself _Stupid, Arya Stark. That's really stupid._

"Next thing is to get you to Riverrun," Gendry was saying. "Less than a week, maybe, now we have horses."

She mumbled something by way of acknowledgment. It should have been a good thing but suddenly she didn't feel particularly relieved that time was passing. After all, though Riverrun was the seat of her mother's family, Catelyn herself would not be there and Arya really knew very little of her uncle and grandfather; she had met them when younger but had few recollections of the time. She assumed she would be welcomed, but it troubled her more to wonder how they would treat Gendry and how long she could expect him to stay. Perhaps he would want to leave right away for the North. She didn't like the idea of that.

"You'll be glad to see your kinfolk," Gendry said. It almost sounded like he was prompting her to say so, rather than stating it as a fact. As if he hoped it were the truth.

For that reason, and for his sake, she tried to smile. Because it would have been childish to throw something at the fire and say she wasn't glad, even though that was what she felt like doing.

* * *

Arya hadn't thought she would need to prove her identity upon arrival at Riverrun, but she had also forgotten she no longer looked the part of a Winterfell daughter. She and Gendry were shepherded off to separate locations of the castle and though she twisted under the hand of the well-meaning servant who was trying to whisk her away, Gendry gave her a reassuring wink. With some reluctance Arya let herself be brought to a tidy inner room where she was provided with soap and water, a clean dress, and instructed to attend to her appearance before any meeting would occur.

It was early evening, and now Arya's stomach was growling as she washed and scrubbed soap into her filthy hair. Though it was strange to be indoors again, it felt wonderful to dry herself in front of a hearth fire and even to slip the clean underclothes and dress on over her head. She belted Needle again to her waist and sent a glare to the serving maid who looked askance at it.

"I wish to see my grandfather now," she said.

"If ye are who ye say, it will be your uncle you're seeing, Ser Edmure Tully," the serving girl corrected. "The old lord is abed now and don't take any visitors."

Arya breathed in the scent of the soap on her skin as they went through the passages together. She was striding out of habit, but the dress hampered her legs, reminding her she must take mincing steps now. Gods, she had nearly forgotten what a trial it was to be a girl. She'd have to get accustomed to it again.

In the main hall, her uncle regarded her with initial reservation. She could see the family resemblance to her mother in his face, but she wasn't certain if he could see it in hers. Especially as she'd always been told she was more Stark than Tully. He fired at her a few quick questions designed to certify that she was indeed family; Arya replied promptly and accurately, serene in the knowledge there was nothing he could ask she did not know.

After that, he relaxed somewhat, and went so far as to draw her in for a brief embrace. He told her he was sorry for the loss of her father, and she thanked him. Somehow it didn't touch the wound that was still on her soul. He asked if there was anything she immediately needed, and she told him that she wanted to be sure Gendry was all right. When her uncle looked blank Arya realized she could only say that though he was not high-born, he was her friend and traveling companion. Edmure sent a servant to check on his whereabouts. Then Arya could relax a little, though she felt guilty when they dined and she saw the table spread with many more good things than she and her uncle alone could eat.

"I am glad you are safely come," Edmure was saying. "We must send a raven to Winterfell at once, and one to your mother, though who knows how long it will take to reach her. She was here, but has gone on in hopes of retrieving your sister from the city."

"I see," Arya managed. She had envisioned her mother being home with Bran and Rickon all this time.

"As it happens, I myself must soon be joining your brother's forces. You will stay here until things—" Edmure waved a hand to indicate the general chaos of Westerosi affairs—"calm down."

She nodded. If Gendry could be persuaded to stay as well, she wouldn't mind so much being left alone in a household with no one else she knew.

"And now you must eat, lass." He indicated a heaping platter of sauced ribs.

She thanked him and helped herself, the smell of the roasted meat reminding her how ravenous she had been.

Once dinner was over, Arya was conducted to the room she had been given, but was anxious to find out what had become of Gendry. She asked the girl, Margit, who had brought her. Margit looked somewhat taken aback by Arya's forward request, but told her where she might look for him and implied that it might be ignored this once.

She quickly found Gendry in one of the smaller anterior courtyards, which housed some humble servants' quarters. He was sitting on a low stone wall that ran around the perimeter, backlit by the setting sun. She approached him self-consciously, but he smiled and rose when he saw her.

"That's more like it," he said, indicating her dress.

"Shut up." Arya kicked at stones. "Why've they stuck you out here?"

"It's all right. Better than I'm used to."

"Did you at least get something to eat?"

"Mm. What about your family then?"

She tried to swing a leg over the stone wall to join him in sitting back down, but the dress did not permit the motion and she had to settle for sitting crossways. She refused to meet his eyes. "My mother was here but has gone on to King's Landing. Uncle is leaving soon too, with his men, to meet my brother. Grandfather's too sick to get out of his bed."

She watched as a pair of gawking stable-boys passed.

For a moment they were both silent, the oddity of their new circumstances pressing on them.

"Well, I can work, as long as I'm here," he said, eventually, stretching.

She studied him out of the corner of her eye. It was the perfect opportunity to give her opinion, which was that she did not want him to go, but then what if he asked why? Because she didn't have an answer for that. And it seemed to her that if you were going to ask someone to give up a portion, however small, of their life for you, the least you could do was have a reason for it. It didn't even have to be a good reason. It just had to exist.

"You shouldn't have to work," she said at last. "You're sort of a guest. You're _my_ guest."

Gendry plucked at the moss growing between the stones. "I _want_ to work. Wouldn't be right sitting here, taking their food. Least I can help out with the smithing, see that they've got decent weaponry going into battle."

"Do you want to fight?" she said, curiously.

"Not my war, is it? Doesn't make a difference to me who calls himself king of the land."

She thought about that. "Maybe you should cross the sea. To know if things are better anywhere else."

"Don't know if I'd like sailing."

"I would." Arya sat up straight, imagining herself on a storm-tossed vessel bound for Braavos, the home of Syrio Forel. "It would be wonderful. Gendry, promise you won't leave here without me."

"Without _you_," he repeated.

She could feel herself redden. "Without telling me. You won't sneak off in the night. Promise."

"You're always asking me to promise things."

She lifted her shoulder, self-conscious again.

"I mean I think you sometimes forget I'm not just one of your brothers you can order around."

"I don't think of you like that," she muttered.

"What then," Gendry challenged.

"You're my—friend."

"_Friend_, that doesn't even mean anything."

"It does to me."

With a slightly exasperated grunt he reached out and chucked her under the chin. "I won't leave without you knowing. Now get back inside, it's late."

"Fine," Arya said, scrambling down from the wall. "But I'm coming back tomorrow after breakfast." She darted across the courtyard and back up the inner set of stairs.

* * *

There was no shortage of work for a competent blacksmith or armorer within the environment of a castle. Gendry soon found he would have little idle time as long as he sojourned at Riverrun. This suited him well. Once he had demonstrated his abilities he was expected to work mostly on his own and according to his own pace, which suited him, too, as it had been that way under the aegis of Tobho Mott.

Arya came daily to visit him, flouting the unvoiced concerns of her house guardians, and lengthened her visits each time until it seemed she was always hanging about, watching him hammer steel, offering to fetch water or make herself otherwise useful. Gendry had given up telling her to go back within and find an occupation more appropriate to her sex and station. The truth was it soon began to seem normal to have her about and he didn't mind it because she wasn't too much of a nuisance. Except when she was in one of her chatty moods, peppering him with nonsense questions. But for the most part she was amiable, biddable, and even showed a certain amount of aptitude for learning a few things.

One afternoon, he was busy turning out horseshoes, while Arya lay nearby on a stack of hay, boots propped up against the wall. She continued to wear her boots along with her dress, giving her an impish girl-of-the-wood appearance. Her hair was growing out now, but it still flew in every direction and more often than not had twigs or grass sticking out of it. She was tonelessly humming something at the same time she chewed on a wheat stalk.

"Can you stop that?"

"Which one?"

"Either. Both."

"I like to sing."

"That's not singing."

"Fine," she said mildly. But he knew there was something on her mind. He waited, working away without comment. The sizzle of heated iron dipped in water was the only sound for a while, that and a yardman shouting at a stable boy somewhere nearby.

Eventually she came out with it. "My uncle's had word from my mother."

Her tone didn't tell him anything so he looked up. "Everything all right?"

Arya shrugged and sat up, braiding pieces of straw between her fingers. "She hasn't got my sister yet...But when she does, they will go north, back to Winterfell. She wants me there too, but I'm to stop at the Twins on the way up and wait for them."

"The Twins, what's that?"

"A castle, stupid." She tossed a bit of straw at him. "I'll have an escort of course. My uncle might take me himself."

"So you're going."

He didn't mean to say it so flatly.

"It's already been decided. It's not as if I was _asked_."

"Right."

"I don't especially want to go, but I have to."

He set down the tongs and stared at her levelly.

"Will you come too?" she said in a tiny voice.

He didn't want to hurt her, but this was too much and he warned, "I'm not going to follow you all over the countryside every time you have somewhere to go, Arya Stark."

"I know that." In almost a whisper.

"But that's what you think, isn't it? You think that somebody like me, no name nor no family, it doesn't matter where they go to bed at night? It doesn't matter they don't have a home or a place they know. We can just follow the lords and ladies around, make their fires, tend their animals?"

"That's not—" She pressed her lips together as though to keep them from shaking but her chin was still high.

"Then _why_?"

"Because I don't want to lose you! I feel like you're the only person in the world I can _talk_ to—I feel like everyone else is _ghosts._" Her voice broke on the last word.

Gendry said resolutely, "You're going to have to find someone else you can talk to. I just know it can't be me."

It sounded unnecessarily cruel. But perhaps it was for the best.

She scrambled down off the hay bale. "I don't understand why you're being like this," she got out, and then darted off, the way she always did, with the fleetness of a woods creature.

He didn't see her then for another two days, when, as he was crossing the courtyard on his way to an errand. Arya accosted him from the stairs above. She was wrapped in a new traveling cloak, her face chilly and hard. "We are leaving tomorrow," she said. "I came to say good-bye."

Gendry didn't know whether he ought to feel proud of her for her composure or to be stung by it. He nodded, aware that there were others about. "Safe travels."

"I also wish to thank you for escorting me here safely. Were my father alive he would have been very grateful and would have recompensed you accordingly."

It was clear she had rehearsed those sentences.

"My mother," she continued, in that unnaturally adult tone, "would be happy to give you your due. Should you ever find yourself near Winterfell, please come to see us so we can make good on the debt."

"You're not in my debt, Arya. I didn't do it for money." And she knew it too, the stubborn little wench.

"I must be going." She held out a composed small hand.

He wasn't sure what he was meant to do with it. He was damned if he was going to kiss it, drawing that line of lady and commoner between them again. Gods knew, the line was significant enough without their enforcing it.

He took her hand and enclosed it in his own warm, dirty one, tightening his fingers around hers, letting the grip say what he could not. _Be safe. Be strong. Find someone you can talk to. Find someone to keep the ghosts away at night._

_ I won't forget you._

He thought she understood. He loosened his grip but her fingers still clung to his. The mask of her face threatened to crack.

"Good-bye, Gendry," she said, in her tiny voice again.

He nodded. He didn't know what had happened to his own voice but he couldn't use it. He turned away from her, seeking composure for himself. When he glanced back, to say his own goodbye, she was gone.


	5. Chapter 5

Nearly a month passed before Arya and her retinue reached the northern seat of the House of Frey.

Edmure had not accompanied them, in the end, though he had sent several of his men plus a handful of minor servants including Margit, who was some comfort to Arya on the journey. Margit was only a few years older than Arya herself and while not overly inclined to speculation or questions the way Arya was, she was a practical and capable traveling companion.

At nights in their small tent Arya would lie awake staring at the firelight shadows flickering through and listen to Margit's breathing, her warm blanketed body beside her, and it reminded her of when she was younger and had climbed into Sansa's or her mother's bed of a cold night.

Still she felt lonely much of the time, day and night, though she kept a brave face when there was anyone else to see. She would have liked to help with hunting or wood-gathering but no one would let her do anything. The travel blurred into days of riding and sitting at fireside.

She was not sorry when they finally reached The Twins.

For some reason the name had given her the impression that it would be a convivial, bustling place full of juvenile life. It was therefore with disbelieving eyes Arya gazed around as a skeletal castellan who looked as ancient as the weirwood trees brought them through the dank passageways to be presented to Lord Frey. Word had been sent well in advance of their arrival but it didn't appear as if the floors had even been swept to welcome them.

Arya shared a glance with Margit before they were brought in the long room. She curtsied in front of the old man, who was staring at her under wiry grey brows.

"Catelyn Stark's daughter?" he demanded in a rasp.

One of her uncle's men stepped forward and confirmed Arya's name and position.

"Doesn't look at all like her," Lord Frey mumbled to the young woman standing beside him, who seemed a great deal more interested in the fraying edge of her dress than in any possible resemblance.

Arya stood sturdily, refusing to be embarrassed. Her normally stick-straight hair was beginning to grow out from the shaggy cut Yoren had given her all those weeks ago. She was wearing a clean gown. Margit had seen that she was presentable. She knew she was not as pretty as Sansa, who did resemble their mother, but as she had been hearing this all her life the fact couldn't make any difference now.

"How old are you, girl? Speak up, let me hear your voice."

"I am soon thirteen," Arya replied.

"Fertile yet?"

She wasn't sure if she'd misheard this. Margit squeezed Arya's hand in a gesture of confiding solidarity as if embarrassed for her sake. "What an old goat," she whispered.

Someone nearby went into a coughing fit but was soon hushed. Arya swept a glance over the assemblage; men, women, and children of all ages, most appearing ill or unkempt. She turned back to Lord Frey and said, "My mother has requested that I stay here till she arrives. I trust this will be satisfactory." After all, Freys were their vassals, more or less. He could throw her out on her ear for rudeness but it wouldn't do him any good in the passage of time.

He waved a hand at her as though she were a fly. "This place is overrun with scrawny misses, one more won't be noticed. Stay as you like."

It was hardly the warm welcome she'd pictured, but as she was ushered away she could only think that she was glad Gendry had stayed behind; he was better off at Riverrun.

The room she was shown to was small, and seemed as dank and drab as everything else they had so far seen. There were no concessions made for the servants, so Margit was installed with Arya. That night after the other girl had gone to sleep among the scant furs provided, Arya sat on the edge of the bed and watched the moonlight slant through the one narrow window.

She felt more surrounded by ghosts than ever.

* * *

Two more months passed before Catelyn Stark sent word to The Twins to say she had recovered her oldest daughter Sansa and would be coming north to fetch her younger one as well.

It was easily a further two months before the two women and their retinue of Stark men arrived.

Arya had turned thirteen during this time and left, in her own mind at least, her childhood behind. Though the castle was full of other children, most of them sired by the old goat (as she uncharitably thought of Walder Frey ever since Margit had put the phrase in her head), they never seemed to run about with laughter and rambunctiousness. They all possessed an air of discontented fretfulness, a lack of wit, or both. Arya could not make friends with any of the youngsters and had by now given up trying. The mothers did not seem to like her, either, and she did not enjoy spending time in their presence. So she spent her days rambling outdoors when the weather permitted, practicing the patterns Syrio Forel had taught her, napping alongside the river, sitting for hours in thought.

The reunion with her mother and sister was tearful on Catelyn's part but Arya found herself surprisingly calm as they tried to catch up and share the lighter moments of the past months. She found Sansa much altered. Whatever privations her sister had endured—and without needing any warning they were both careful to avoid speaking of any unpleasantries—had affected her appearance and her mannerisms, perhaps permanently. Arya felt that they were strangers. She had not been close to her sister before, and now, though she wanted to be, she didn't know how to bridge the gap of time and circumstances now separating them.

They did not delay at the Twins for any longer than necessary before embarking on the rest of the trip north. It was a tiring but uneventful journey, and when at last it was over, and they had been taken back into the heart of Winterfell, and had exhausted themselves with the reunions, the talking, the feasting, the mourning rituals for Lord Stark, the endless greetings of relatives and vassals and friends old and new...Arya stood in the doorway of her old room, the one that she had last seen as a child when her father had still been alive, and vowed silently that she would make this place feel like home again.

If somehow that was not possible, she would leave, and find a place that did.

* * *

Time passed, unremarkably, in Winterfell. It was always cold.

Arya saw yet another nameday.

News came from the south that Joffrey the usurper had been killed and that Robb Stark, king of the north, was coming home, leaving the remaining factions to fight amongst themselves for control of King's Landing.

Catelyn brought Arya some news of her own, one afternoon.

"There's something I must tell you," she said, drawing a brush through Arya's hair, which was now halfway down her back. Margit had been tending to it moments ago, but when Lady Stark had appeared in the girl's chambers Margit had noiselessly vanished, sensing the older woman's need to speak with her daughter.

Arya held still, her back straight, as she looked at her mother's reflection. Catelyn had aged much in the past months; her own hair losing its luster, her face tight and nervous, lined with the stresses of running a keep without its master, only young Bran to fill the role nominally.

"Now that Robb is coming back," Catelyn continued. "And now that you are old enough to know of it, I wanted to tell you, that we made a bargain, your brother and I." She drew the brush more firmly through Arya's hair right to the end. Arya knitted her brows to withstand the tug on her scalp. "You recall when you stayed at the Twins?"

_I'd like to forget_, she thought. "Of course."

"In order to gain the allegiance of Lord Frey, we made a commitment—that Robb was to wed one of his daughters, and you one of his sons. Waldron, I believe."

Arya stared at the reflections of her and her mother's face.

"Do you remember any of them?"

"They were all horrid," she said, after a moment.

"Naturally you wouldn't have thought of the boys any differently, then," Catelyn said briskly. "You are a young woman now and it will not be much longer before you would be wed in any case. It will not be for another year, perhaps, but you need to prepare your mind and body."

"For what?" Arya was recalling suddenly how the old Frey had asked about her fertility almost as soon as she'd been introduced. His evaluating gaze. Abruptly she felt rather nauseated.

"For marriage, of course." Catelyn tried to smile and now passed a hand down over her head, restored to sleekness.

Arya remained outwardly calm. There was no sense in raging at her mother, though she could sense Catelyn was prepared for just such a scene. _If my father was still alive he'd never see me married off to one of those puny Freys, to live in a dungeon like the Twins, with a goat of a father-in-law._

"Arya?" Catelyn put gentle hands on her shoulders. "If you have questions, you must come to me. You will need some time to get accustomed to the idea, I know."

"I have no questions," Arya said flatly. Did her mother imagine she knew nothing of the congress between males and females? Perhaps not all of the particulars, but certainly enough not to be confused about what marriage entailed.

_I _will_ need time, but not to get accustomed to anything. Time to plan how to get out of this._ Killing Waldron Frey wouldn't do, for a start, there were too many relatives who could take his place. Fleeing Winterfell—possibly even Westeros, that was a far more likely idea...though perhaps an absolute last resort.

She could send a message to Jon. He had never got on with Catelyn, he wouldn't support the idea of his sister being sent away to pay a debt, even if Robb did. And from the sound of things, Robb was going to have his own dealings with the Freys to worry about.

"I'll leave you." Catelyn stooped to drop a kiss on her head but Arya inched away at the last moment. Her mother drew in a breath to say one last thing, then changed her mind and walked from the room.

All these months Arya had been wearing gowns—she had even trained herself to fight capably in one, because it seemed like the most practical way of dealing with such a limitation—but now she sprang up, feeling the need to make a physical example of rejection for her future, and rummaged through her cabinets until she found an old pair of trousers. She pulled them on angrily. They still fit, as she had not grown much taller, though they were snug around the hips and backside where she was acquiring some shape. Casting the gown to the floor, she found a long tunic to put on top, then one of Bran's borrowed-without-permission jackets that fit snugly around her chest.

She looked like a girl anyway now, but, that couldn't be helped and she didn't care. Throwing on her boots, she marched out the door, intending to go to the stables and find a horse to ride. She would seek out the clean cold air and the rolling hills.

* * *

"I hear your lord brother is not far off," Margit remarked, a few days later. "Will he stay now, do you think?"

"I hope so." Arya pushed the spoon around in her soup. They were sitting in the kitchens. It had been some time since all of the family had sat down for a meal. Sansa ate little enough of anything, but when she did it was brought to her rooms. Bran often said he didn't have the energy to be brought down to table, and Rickon was like a creature of the wild, spending more time with his direwolf than with any of them. Perhaps Robb returning would help them to re-establish a sense of family community again, though Arya's own heart hadn't been much in it since Catelyn had announced the forthcoming betrothal.

"For my part I hope so too," Margit agreed. "Twill be good to see some life in this place again. And some men, pardon, my lady." Arya made a face at her and she giggled, sweeping the corner of her apron across the tabletop.

When Robb and his entourage were finally spotted close to Winterfell, Arya took out her horse hoping to meet them along the way, but she took a hilltop path which, though it afforded a good vantage point of the roads below, was rocky and steep. Her mount threw a shoe and she was forced to walk him back down. It took more time than she estimated, and so when she and the horse came through the gates, Robb and his company of men had already arrived. The yards were a flurry of activity, with Winterfell's remaining servants rushing to help the arrivals. Men were calling out orders and exchanging jovialities, eager for the prospect of a feast and a proper bed, while similarly their tired horses stamped their feet and demanded their grain and rest.

Arya passed the reins of her mount into the hands of a stable boy and looked around her at the noisy confusion.

Someone grabbed her from the side and lifted her right into the air before she had a chance to protest.

"Little sister." Robb swung her around in a circle and then gave an exaggerated grunt. "Not so little any more!"

At the sight of his face, beaming, even though his eyes were lined with fatigue, she promptly felt badly that she had, for a time, wished it was Jon coming home instead. After all, this was her big brother too. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him, the feel of his broad shoulders under the rough furs suddenly giving her an intense longing for their father, so strong and unexpected that tears came to her eyes.

Robb hugged her back and set her feet on the ground. "How could you not be here to meet me?" he chided.

"I'm sorry. My horse turned—"

He brushed off the explanation. "Of course you were out riding, there's even straw in your hair. You haven't changed at all except to grow taller." Laughing, he gestured to someone who Arya couldn't see at first, blocked behind a few assembled men a dozen paces away. "Here's one wants to see you, a friend of yours I found at the crossroads. Gendry!"

Arya stared, unable to believe it until she saw him step out past the others, into her path of sight.

She tried to smile but her face felt stuck, unmovable. Robb would no doubt have remarked on her odd reaction had it not been for Catelyn coming along the balcony above, her face wreathed in joy at the sight of her son. Robb squeezed Arya's arm and then left her to run up the stairs to his mother.

Alone in the milling crowd of people, Arya and Gendry stared at each other.

Was he different? she wondered. Didn't he look exactly like how her mind remembered him, maybe just a little harder, stronger? His blue eyes, that spiky black hair which always looked like he'd just run his fingers through it, were the same.

He took a few steps towards her and then stopped, as if waiting for an indication. For an instant uncertainty flashed across his face. And it felt like he might vanish if she didn't speak, so she hastily said—"I wish I'd known you were coming." Because it was the only thing that came to her mind.

"I know, I..." He shrugged. "Your brother—that is, Lord Stark—said it would be fine."

"It _is_ fine." Arya stepped forwards. Seven hells, he thought she was telling him he wasn't welcome. "I'm just surprised."

She didn't know what to do then. She thought that she wanted to hug him, as she had done with Robb, but it wasn't quite the same. Self-consciously she shifted from one foot to the other. They could hardly have any kind of conversation in the middle of the yard.

He must have felt the awkwardness too, because he came closer then and, turning as he passed her, said, "Meet me later."

"Where?"

"You tell me."

"In the godswood," she said, suddenly decisive.

"M'lady," he said, and it sent an odd thrill of memory blended with possibility through her, that she didn't fully understand, but here was good things again, here was newness and familiarity at the same time, it was _Gendry._

He picked up a saddle nearby and began carrying it across the yard, disappearing among the other men. Arya leaped for the stairs, taking them two at a time, anxious to get to her room and stare into a mirror, for she could only imagine what she looked like. And since they would be eating dinner soon, she would be expected to dress. With more haste than care she discarded her riding attire, trousers and tunic, and washed hands and face. She picked out one of her nicer gowns (one usually scorned for its lengthy train and detailed embroidery) and slipped it on, then applied a brush to her hair until it gleamed and flew in the candlelight. She decided after inspecting herself for a few moments that she looked presentable. It occurred to her she might call Margit to fix her hair, but that would attract more attention. Arya settled for pulling it into a quick braid. There, that was more than enough preening, she told herself sternly.

Dinner in the Great Hall was a lively affair, reminiscent of those in days gone by. The men were boisterous, happy to be returned to their families and neighbors. Catelyn was radiant, looking better than she had in months, Arya thought, now that her children were all about her again. Even Sansa had a smile, though she excused herself early from the festivities, not accustomed to all the light and noise. The boys were soon to follow. Arya stayed until her mother caught her eye and sent her an meaningful gesture of dismissal. Conversation among the men was tending towards crudity, she assumed, from what she could hear of it. She bade goodnight to Robb and took her leave.

Arya knew that Margit, who was busy providing extra help in the kitchens, wouldn't miss her, so she slipped outdoors and headed straight to the godswood. A few dogs barked, but she avoided attracting any other attention and was soon making her way through the well-trodden paths, surrounded by whispering trees.

It occurred to her she should have gotten her cloak. Her dress was long-sleeved and high-necked, but no defense against the frostiness of the dark air.

Gendry was already waiting for her. There was a waxing moon this night, but here the canopy of trees overhead grew too thickly to let much of its light through. Still, she could see his form in the darkness.

"It's late," he said. "I thought you might not come."

"Not come, when it was my idea?" She felt very grown-up. He was reaching for her hand and holding her arm out, and looking her up and down.

"What are you doing?" she demanded, but letting him turn her, almost as if they were in a dance.

"Trying to see where you've hidden that sword."

"I didn't think I would need it," she said, feeling defensive.

"Maybe more than before."

"Why?" she fired back.

"You don't look like such a kid any more."

"I'm _not_ such a kid any more." She pushed him to prove her point. She knew she was stronger, given her hours of walking and riding, the solitary sword-practice and archery that she'd kept up in the months gone by; but she wasn't prepared for how unyielding _his_ body felt. He took a couple of steps back, almost indulgently; but his chest was like an anvil.

"I didn't see you at dinner."

"We were on different ends of the room," he pointed out.

"Tell me how it happened you came here."

"I stayed a while at Riverrun, but fancied making my own way after that," he said, shrugging. "Always lots of work near the Crossroads, I was there for a time. Then your uncle found me again, convinced me to help make armor for Stark men. Later your brother took note and asked me to come North with them. Thought I'd freeze my—thought it would be cold, but not this cold."

Arya grinned, proud even though she was shivering. "Well, you're wearing leather. You need fur like the rest of us."

He gave her a severe look. "What are you wearing?"

"This? Is a dress. Which, at one time, I believe you expressed a desire to see me in."

Gendry was shrugging out of his overcoat and putting it around her shoulders. She hugged herself, relishing the lingering warmth from his body and it smelled like him, sort of charcoal and iron and masculine.

"Now you _will_ freeze," she said, but didn't try to give it back. Impulsively she added, "I'm happy you're here. I always wanted you to see Winterfell."

"It seems a fine place."

"Tomorrow you have to come riding with me. There's so many places I want to show you." She thought of all her rambles, all the spots she treasured. She wouldn't have taken just anyone to see them, but Gendry would appreciate them, she was sure. Some rightness seemed restored now that he was here. Could she say that, or would he think her a fool?

"I will have to work—here, too, you know."

"Oh, but not right at _first_, Robb and all the men need to rest, and so do you, certainly."

"That's not the way it is with us small-folk."

She was irritated by this observation. As if she didn't know how things were for most people. He had better not think she was some sort of spoiled lady now, afraid to get her hands dirty, afraid of hard work. When she spent far more of her time outdoors assisting the tenants than she did primping in front of a mirror. (Tonight being the exception.) Why, just the other day she'd pushed a barrowful of somebody's turnips up the path and the old farmer had thanked her profusely and she hadn't given it a second thought, until now.

"Well, we don't lie about in our beds all day either," she said, sharply. "Except Sansa, and she's been through...things."

"I know you don't lie about," Gendry said, sighing through his nose. "But it's not the same, is it?"

"It's only not the same if—you're—determined that it's not the same," she said, jutting her chin out while at the same time temporarily losing track of the argument. And her wits it seemed. "I mean—it's just because you're all set to be haughty because you have to work for a living and I don't, only I probably work just as hard as you do, I have a blister from _turnips_ today."

"What?" He squinted at her in genuine confusion.

"Turnips!" she said loudly.

"Have you been at the cider?"

"_No_, Gendry, seven _hells_."

"All right. Make sense then. Why are you mad at me?"

"I'm not mad at you."

"Really."

"Yes. Really. I'm _happy_. To see you again." She placed her hands on her hips and thrust them sideways.

"Because that's not what happy looks like. Not on you anyway."

Arya could feel a knot settling in her stomach and suddenly she was thinking of Waldron Frey, whose face she couldn't even remember but when he said 'happy' she knew she wasn't, she wouldn't be until that specter could be put from her. She stared evenly at Gendry but she could feel her nostrils flaring and her chin threatening to quiver, and she knew the emotions she hadn't been able to produce for Catelyn were about to come tumbling out of her now.

"Oi," he said softly—the syllable a question, _what's wrong with you, Arya Stark?_–and the familiar sound of him saying it unraveled her shaky composure. She crumpled. She felt like she was folding in two, like a broadsword was cleaving her legs away from her.

He caught her, above the elbows, as she swayed forward, and pulled her into him. Slowly, not forcefully, giving her a chance to push him away, but Arya didn't resist at all. Her elbows bumped into his chest and then she slid her arms around him and grabbed like he was a tree trunk and she was just about to go over a waterfall. It felt that desperate and she didn't care.

His hand came up and patted the back of her head, then he tucked her head under his chin and made a soothing sound in his chest. And Arya closed her eyes fiercely against the tears.

They stood together, both off-balance. Arya thought that if anything were to interrupt this moment—something as ridiculous as the slightest leaf falling behind them—she wouldn't be able to endure it. She wanted the night to be this and nothing else.

"I don't know what this is about," Gendry muttered.

_I don't know either,_ she thought. _And I don't want a name for it. It's just us. It's right. Don't let me go._

He tilted her face towards him, scanning it.

"I can't talk about it, not now," she managed.

"All right. Tomorrow." The skin of his knuckles was rough as it brushed against her damp cheekbones.

Her legs felt unsteady, so she tugged him down to sit on the ground. And then, because even in the depth of her heart-choking misery she realized it wouldn't be appropriate to climb into his lap, she leaned against his shoulder and grabbed his hand for continued comfort.

He tightened his fingers around hers and they were silent.

Mist was rising, surrounding them with a sense of ephemeral protection, and Arya began to find calm again, slowly, lulled by its ghostly coalescence.

"Better go back," he said. "They'll be looking for you."

They walked together back to the gate. He waited until she had disappeared past the guest house back towards the great keep, before exiting the enclosure himself.


	6. Chapter 6

At breakfast Arya was unable to keep her head from drooping into her plate of bread and porridge. Though she had made it back to her room undetected the night before she'd not been able to fall asleep until early in the morning. Upon rising she'd felt a deep sense of embarrassment. She didn't know what was wrong with her. It was hard to blame Gendry for his comment about her having been at the cider when she had been behaving so oddly. She would have to be particularly sensible today.

Passing by behind her, Robb gave her head a gentle push forwards. "Up too late, by the looks of it? Mother said you were tired, but I told her to let you stay up, it's not every day your brother comes home from the war."

She gave him a doleful look and he stopped and swung a leg over the bench to sit by her. "What's it been like?"

Arya lifted a shoulder. "Easier than it was for you, I'm sure."

"Ah, but I know you don't like to sit and wait." He propped an elbow on the table. "You'd have been right beside me if you were allowed, defending the family honor."

She acknowledged that with a twist of her mouth.

"Mother needs you. Getting you and Sansa back, that was the only thing keeping her going, sometimes." Robb's light tone grew serious. "Sansa's much changed."

"I know. But she won't talk to me. She never did talk to me."

"She may always need looking after. You'll have to be the strong one, Arya. There are still—things ahead of us—we won't want to do."

His voice sounded strange and she cast a sideways look at him, realizing that he didn't want his part of the Frey betrothal any more than she did.

It was some comfort. Some, not much.

Robb squeezed her shoulder. "What are you going to do today?" he said, more cheerfully.

Arya glanced around but Catelyn was nowhere nearby and so she saw no reason to dissemble. "I mean to show Gendry how fine our lands are. He has never been this far north."

Robb groaned. "I suggest you keep nearby and on foot. None of us want to be riding again any time soon."

"I know," Arya said again, though she had, in fact, forgotten.

"And don't make a nuisance of yourself. He works hard—I want him to stay. Uncle said it was he brought you safely to Riverrun?"

"He is just a stubborn southern boy, but it is true we need a skilled armorer, and he is one."

Robb smiled at her. "Well. If Mother asks where you are, I'll say you're busy embroidering your engagement linen or some such thing, will I?"

She nodded, and for his complicity, gave him a smile. He rose, patted her back and moved away.

* * *

Later, she and Gendry didn't talk as they left the grounds of Winterfell and made their way up one of the rolling hills beyond. Then she turned sideways and mumbled a quick apology for her behavior in the godswood. He didn't reply at first, and she was preparing to prompt him by saying his name, or perhaps poking him in the arm, but then he said, "It's all right."

"Are you sure?"

"You just—surprised me, you know? How long has it been since we saw each other? And then you were practically climbing on top of me."

"I was _not_ climbing on top of you." Arya felt heat rush to her cheeks. Put like that, it sounded awful.

"I didn't mind. It was unexpected, is all. What if someone in your family was watching, what would they think?"

"I don't care what they think." Defiantly she tossed her head.

He stopped, put his hand against a tree, plucked thoughtfully at the bark. "So are you going to tell me what it was about?"

Arya looked down. She wasn't trying to be coquettish or difficult, but suddenly, the daylight wasn't conducive to expressing herself any more than the night had been. "I don't know if I can."

"Try," he said, raising a dark eyebrow.

"I wanted this to be home," she said, after a moment. At least she could tell him part of what was bothering her, without having to mention the arranged engagement. "All the time I was at Riverrun, and after I left, at the Twins. And I just had these memories and this idea of what it was, when my father was still alive. I thought we could get that all back. Once we just _got_ here. I told myself...I would make it home again. And it is, but...it's not. It's not right. I don't know why. And now Robb is here and I know I should feel that we're finally all together, but when I saw you I—"

She trailed off, not sure what she meant to say.

"You don't want me here?"

"No! That's not it, stupid." She thumped her fist on his arm.

"What then?"

She was quiet, rubbing her knuckles.

"Want to know what I think?"

Arya gave a meek nod.

"I think you always want to be going somewhere. On the move."

"I don't think I do," she said, but feeling the truth of it.

"Getting into trouble," Gendry added. "I saw that in you from the start."

"Then you should have stayed away," she said, pertly.

He nodded. "I should've."

She linked her arm in his and pulled him along. "Come over this way. You can see everything from here, even the winter town."

Gendry obligingly let her tug him over to where there was a break in the trees allowing a view of most of Winterfell. "It's very fine," he agreed.

She looked at him suspiciously. "Are you mocking?"

"No. I'm just not about to compose a song, or something."

"You don't have to be a bard to appreciate beauty." She turned her gaze back to the horizon, and they were quiet for a while.

"You're not wearing a dress today," he observed.

Arya flushed. "I don't mean to, any more, when I'm out. I trained myself to fight in one, but it's cursedly difficult."

"Still, it was pretty. The one you had on last night."

She ducked her head, embarrassed. "Don't try to flatter me into being a girl," she mumbled.

He laughed. "Is that what I was doing? I was just trying to be nice. And like I said right at the first, you _are_ a girl."

She smiled, reluctantly, at this reference to their first encounter.

* * *

The next few weeks went by pleasantly. With Robb's return, Catelyn's focus was distracted from her younger daughter, meaning Arya was able to spend her time as she liked.

After staying briefly at Winterfell, Gendry had insisted on having some independence in his accommodations, and so Robb had made arrangements for him to stay in the winter town and work from there. Gendry still found the occasional pretext to come up to the keep, and it was only slightly less convenient for Arya to sneak out to visit him below. It had always been tacitly understood that the winter town was not an appropriate place for her to frequent, but as she had never been expressly told that she might _not_ visit anyone there, she went with a relatively clear conscience.

They fell easily into their old way of passing time together, with Arya hanging around while Gendry worked, yet often persuading him to view the countryside with her. Sometimes they walked; occasionally she brought horses from Winterfell so they could go farther out. Arya had even decided that someone ought to teach Gendry to read and she thought it might have to be her, although she had not broached the subject to him yet since it seemed likely he would scoff at the notion and call it unnecessary. But that was a project that could be saved for the long cold days of winter.

She had convinced him, one afternoon, to come with her and carry some provisions to one of the tenant farms, where the man was ill. The grateful wife was welcoming, but they had stayed longer than intended and the sky was heavy by the time they started the trek back across the fields. Arya had a bit of skip in her step. She was in the middle of relating some story to Gendry when, coming up into the muddy street of the winter town, they passed a girl. Arya wouldn't have given her a second glance except for the fact that, though the girl murmured a polite greeting to both of them, her smile was only for Gendry.

Arya tucked a possessive arm around her companion's and shot a look upwards at his face, but waited till the lass was out of hearing before demanding: "Do you know her?"

"Seen her before," Gendry said. "Don't know her name."

"Good."

"Why's that?"

"She doesn't seem like the right sort of girl."

"The right sort of—Arya, she may not be a lady, but I'm no lord neither, recall."

"I'm not talking about lords and ladies. I am saying there's a right sort and a wrong sort."

They had reached the gate of the modest stone and wood dwelling in which he stayed. Arya swept in ahead of him as if she herself lived there. After a moment he followed. The main room had grown chill in their absence and he went to the hearth to start up the fire.

"I mean you do know what she does, right?" Arya pursued.

He stopped, stick in hand, and looked back at her. "Yeah, I do know what she does. At least she minds her own business, which is more than you do most of the time."

She was so unused to him saying something directly contradictory, much less appending an uncomplimentary remark, that for an instant she didn't know how to react. It felt like a slap, and she didn't know if that was due to his defense of the girl, or his criticism of her.

"I—I have to go." She turned for the door, pulling it open.

He was there before she could slip through, firmly pushing it shut. Surprised, but also with temper kindling, she glared at him.

"The last time I let you run away from me angry I didn't see you again for a year and a half."

"I wasn't running away! I had no choice about going. You know that."

"Well, no one's forcing you to go anywhere now." He glowered past dark brows at her. She might have been intimidated except she could never be afraid of him, for all the rumbling in his chest or the truculence in his gaze. She also knew that she only had to ask him to move and he would. Though she had no intention of doing so; it would be like relinquishing one's sword in the middle of an altercation.

He cocked his head at her suddenly. "Anyway, what do you care if I knew that girl or not?"

She lifted her chin, unconsciously mirroring his head-tilt. "I don't want to share you with anyone."

He gave a grunt of incredulity. "Listen to the cheek of her. See here, Arya, how long do you expect me to wait for you?"

"Wait for me?" she said, uncertainly, half pleased by the exasperation in his tone, half concerned that she knew exactly what he meant.

"Nothing. This is—" He rubbed the heel of his hand against his browbone as if trying to force away a headache.

"Stupid?"

"Theoretical."

She nodded appreciatively. "Now _that_ is a big word for a blacksmith's apprentice."

"I'm my own man now," he said, laughing almost in despair of her impudence. "And just because I can't read doesn't mean I've never heard the maesters talking. You think you know so much."

"A little about everything," she agreed, noticing the lack of light in the room. "Seven hells, look how dark it's got. If Mother finds I'm gone—"

"I'll walk you back."

"You better not. That'll be worse, if they're out looking."

"Girls aren't the only thing walking these streets. I'm coming with you."

She capitulated with a shrug. But she found herself nervous as they started back to Winterfell. She had never yet been this late returning home. With any luck no one had bothered to check in her room, then she might yet be successful in slipping in unnoticed.

But Ser Rodrik was waiting for them outside the east gate.

Arya opened her mouth to explain, but the master-at-arms directed his gaze at Gendry first. "What do you mean by having her out at this hour?"

Gendry apologized at once, dropping his gaze. Ser Rodrik turned his eye on Arya. "Your lady mother was worried."

"There's no need for her to be worried. As you can see I'm perfectly well."

"Arya, go on," Gendry muttered. He gave her a gentle push to the elbow but perhaps he should not have taken the liberty because if Ser Rodrick's expression had been stony before it now became utter granite. "It's Lord Stark will be dealing with _you,_" he rumbled, putting a hand on Arya's shoulder and turning her. She widened her eyes at Gendry before she was brought away, hoping to lighten the tone of their parting somewhat.

She was not particularly cowed by the master-at-arms, who maintained a disapproving silence as he conducted her into the hands of Catelyn at the entrance to the keep. Still, his unnecessarily dramatic attitude roused the dissident spirit in her, and she faced the lady of the house with a cool expression.

"Arya. Where have you been?" Catelyn demanded.

Robb appeared behind their mother, widening his eyes in just the way she had done to Gendry moments before, and the coincidence nearly made her giggle, but she swallowed the smile and said, "Just out visiting one of the farms."

"With that blacksmith from the lower town," Ser Rodrik delivered as his parting shot (somehow managing to make Gendry's occupation and location sound far more nefarious than necessary, Arya thought).

Catelyn thanked him and bade him good night, then drew Arya within. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Don't be too hard on her, Mother," Robb murmured. "Though I agree, she probably should have had more of an escort."

"You would indulge her, Robb, as you have been away all this time. Just like your father—" Catelyn broke off and stared at Arya. "An answer, please, miss."

"There is no particular meaning to it. Gendry was helping me carry some things. He's my friend. I won't hear anything said against him." She stood staunchly on her toes in the boots, making herself taller.

"Do you have so little regard for safety or honor?" Catelyn demanded. "Friend or not, you are too old to be running about with boys, in the winter town, no less! I see this is what comes of giving you more freedom."

_You haven't given me anything_, Arya thought. _ I took it and you're angry because you've only just noticed_. She dared not say it; it was a lesson learned early that adults never liked to be reminded of their failings, perhaps least of all by their children.

"I've done nothing wrong," she said, at last. "I won't be treated as if I have."

"You will be treated as what you are, my girl," Catelyn said severely, and Arya wondered for a moment if her mother might actually strike her. Perhaps she was not that angry but there was something else in her voice Arya did not understand.

"Mother, it's late. Everyone's tired. Talk to her tomorrow." Robb intervened, and Arya was grateful for her brother's arm around her shoulders, guiding her away.

"Why is she so angry at me?" Arya muttered as they went.

"She was worried, that's all." Robb spoke soothingly, lightly. "It's very important to her that nothing happens to dissolve the engagements with House Frey. Especially since Sansa seems to be unsuited for marriage now...and Bran is unable to walk...and Rickon is scarcely of this world. Try not to upset her needlessly."

"I'm not _trying_ to upset her. I've barely seen her the last few weeks."

"I know. Just smile and behave the best you can, she won't stay angry, and you won't be confined to your rooms. Get some sleep."

She stuck her chin out mutinously, at the door of her room. "No one can keep me in here. I'd like to see anyone try."

"_I _would not want to be your guard." He reached out and tugged at a stray lock of her hair escaping the braid.

"Good night, Robb," she said, suddenly sober, and then blurted out—"I miss Father."

"So do I."

She came to him for a hug. He pressed a quick kiss on the top of her head and left her to enter her room alone.

* * *

The following morning, Arya got up prepared to be accommodating. She permitted Margit to lace her into a dress and to fix her hair into some complicated manner, though the length of time she had to sit motionless was aggravating. After that she brought some greenhouse flowers to brighten Sansa's chambers, and visited with her sister, talking of pleasant things and sitting so straight that her muscles ached. Further, she stopped by to see Bran and inquire after his needs, and she even snagged Rickon in the hallway as he darted by, promising she would take him acorn hunting later if he would wash his face.

Having thus, in her own mind at least, fulfilled her familial responsibilities, Arya felt safe to curl up in an alcove with one of the books from the library tower, where she went undisturbed for a good hour before Margit discovered her and relayed the message that Lady Catelyn wanted to see her.

Arya found her mother gazing out a window.

Catelyn turned, examining her up and down. "Well. At least you look more respectable today. Last night I gave serious consideration to having you confined within Winterfell indefinitely, but Robb argued you should not be cooped up. I yielded on that point, but you must know you will not be allowed to see this—" Catelyn waved a dismissive hand, "—friend of yours again."

"What?"

"Am I not being clear? Have you not been spending most of your time in the company of that blacksmith? You are forbidden to do so, any longer."

"No," Arya said incredulously.

"I beg your pardon?" Catelyn said, icily calm.

"I mean that's not—fair. He hasn't done anything, neither have I. We were just late in getting back and that wasn't his fault."

"I am not interested in whose fault it was or wasn't. Understand this is not only about your coming home late one night, Arya. It is about presenting and maintaining a respectable image as a daughter of House Stark. You are no longer a child, you cannot spend your time climbing trees and cultivating friendships with those who are not so well-born."

"I don't give a f—fig's toss for how he was born," Arya said, tersely. She couldn't tell the older woman that Gendry was dead King Robert's son, it wouldn't make a difference since he was unrecognized as such, and she didn't think he would thank her for sharing such personal information anyway.

"Then you are a fool," Catelyn retorted. "We have nothing but our names and our standards."

"I wish I were nameless."

"How can you say such a thing?"

"It's as you said," Arya answered. "I'm no longer a child."

"But I must treat you like one, if you are not going to cooperate with my wishes for you. Is that what you want? Shall I see that you don't leave the gates of Winterfell until the day comes for you to go away to be married?"

She shook her head.

Catelyn's features softened. "I would rather not confine you, nor do I think it's what your father would have wanted."

_He wouldn't have allowed you to send me away, either._

_ I won't give up Gendry. I don't care what you say, or do. I won't._

_ He's my only..._

She didn't know what he was. Her only not-ghost, perhaps.

"Will you do as I ask?" Catelyn waited for confirmation.

"Yes," Arya lied.

She didn't care.

Gendry wasn't negotiable. Ever.

She waited for nearly a week—it felt an eternity—and nothing of any interest happened. Eventually she brought Margit into her confidence and asked her to carry a message to Gendry. Margit was at first reluctant to help but Arya wheedled until she agreed. So it was arranged that they meet. Arya had found the suspense diverting, but once the hour was upon them and Gendry finally arrived at the prescribed meeting place, a heavily wooded area, she realized she was irritated. It was so unspeakably silly to have to sneak about.

Gendry eyed her. "You wanted to see me."

"You don't have to sound like a servant," she said, further vexed. "I didn't order you here. I wanted to see you, I didn't 'want to see you'."

He gave her his dry you're-not-making-any-sense look.

She circled him as if preparing to engage. He stood patiently and waited for her to finish.

"It's just this," Arya said. "I need to know if anyone has been speaking to you. About us."

"Your brother came to talk to me."

"He did?" She twisted the corner of her mouth nervously. _Please let him not have said anything threatening or stupid or...about the betrothal._

Gendry shrugged. "Said he didn't want there to be any—unpleasantness? I think that was the word he used. Said you were a bit headstrong and loyal to a fault and that was probably all that was going on, but that Lady Stark wouldn't understand such things and he hoped I would. Something like that."

"Did he say you couldn't see me?" Arya sucked in a bit of breath and suspended it, lest the sound of its exhalation should drown out his answer.

He was quiet for such a long moment that she came very close to scooping up a stone and hurling it at him.

"No," he said at last. "He didn't say that."

She breathed out. "Would you have come anyway?"

"I don't know."

"You were supposed to say 'yes'."

"You probably shouldn't be encouraging me to defy your kinfolk."

"When they are wrong, I defy them myself. I'd expect the same from you."

"You know it scares me when you talk like that?"

She was unable to keep back a tiny grin. "I didn't know you were scared of anything."

"I'm scared of lots of things."

"Like what?"

"Like...starving? My head getting chopped off? Being thrown in a dungeon? I don't know, seems like there's plenty can happen that wouldn't, you know, be good."

"True," she said, "but if we're being reasonable, you'd agree that none of those things is likely to happen just because you're spending time with me."

"If we defied your brother's wishes? I'm fairly sure the last two are possible."

"Robb's not a bad lord."

"No one's a bad lord," Gendry said, in a pessimistic manner, "until someone gets too close to his sister." He sat down on a fallen log, moving his feet along the ground, disturbing the leaves.

"So what else are you scared of?" she said, dictatorially, and seating herself, cross-legged, a little higher along the same tree.

He leaned towards her, putting just enough pressure on her knee that she was unbalanced and had to shift quickly not to fall off. "Bossy little high-born wenches like yourself."

She scampered higher on the log, out of the reach of his arm. "I'm not bossy."

"Not bossy, she says, and yet she does nothing but demand promises out of me and tell me what to do, who to talk to, where to meet her..."

"All right, fine."

"Fine what?"

"Just fine."

"Fine you're gonna change, or fine I'm right?"

"_Fine_, I'll do what you say, just once."

He laughed skeptically.

"I'm serious."

Even his silence was skeptical.

"I swear on my name, Arya of House Stark, I will do anything you ask me."

"I'll have to think about this."

"Take your time," she said, suddenly flippant because she _had_ been serious and for an instant the solemnity had gotten ahead of her. "It doesn't have to be now."

"Come here," he said.

She frowned.

"That wasn't it. I'm just telling you to come here."

Arya slid back down the log.

He put out his hand. Trustfully, she didn't move.

"Got something in your hair," he said after a moment.

"That's _not_ what you were going to say. Or do."

"Well, if you know so much, m'lady, why don't you tell me what it was?"

"I don't know. I kind of feel like you might have been going to do something strange like—kiss me."

But she didn't pull away when he touched the side of her face, even though there was time to do so, and the forest sounds around them seemed minute in comparison to the sounds of their breathing. His lips touched hers, warm and iron like the rest of him, and a new kind of exhilarating power surged in her bones, one she wanted to explore, and yet she felt a reticence holding her back.

"Was that strange?" he asked, unevenly.

"No...yes. Because I can't—" She tried to sort through her emotions. Was it possible to maintain a friendship with this new dimension added to it? Because if it wasn't, if this meant they had to follow each other about slavishly moon-eyed the way she'd seen some young couples, she didn't think she could do it.

Yet common sense reminded her of Ned and Catelyn, how they had been in happier times.

Gendry ran hands through his hair, looking wretched. "I won't stay, not if you don't want me here."

"It isn't that." Time, she thought, to tell him about the intended plans for her. Actually it was past time and she knew he was going to be angry that she'd waited this long to let him know. It was rather a big thing. Couldn't be helped now.

"It's that...it's—" Arya gazed upwards, looking for inspiration.

A crow flew by so near and low that she jumped, and it prompted her to remember that time was passing. Time that was no longer theirs to spend freely.

"Mother has promised me to Lord Frey. To one of his sons."

Perhaps she had phrased it somewhat obliquely, but there was no reason for him to stare at her like she wasn't speaking in the common tongue.

"You're saying you're meant to be married?" he said at last.

"Not right away...but yes."

He stood up, causing the log to shake and she had to grip it. "When did this happen?"

"Back around the time when you and I first met, but I didn't know about it until a little while ago."

His expression was stormy. "When?"

"Just before you came," she got out.

"Seven hells—Why didn't you tell me?"

"I wanted to. I didn't know how." She thought of that night in the godswood.

"They should have been the first words out of your mouth."

"What?" she cried. "'Oh, Gendry, it's good to see you, and remember how I went to the Twins, well, I could possibly be the lady of it someday,' is that what I should have said?!"

"That is _exactly_ what you should've said." He whirled on her and leaned in so close that there was nothing but the molten blue steel of his gaze. "I would never have let you spend all that time with me."

"Then I don't regret not saying anything."

He stalked a few steps away, turning away so she could barely see his profile. "Engaged. A kid like you!"

"If I'm old enough to be kissed, I'm old enough to have a fiancé!" she flung at him.

"I didn't plan that," he said angrily. "I didn't come here today for that—and I wasn't thinking about it _two years ago._"

Arya glared at him from under her eyebrows.

"What am I supposed to do?" he demanded.

"I haven't _asked_ you to do anything. You could just wait until I figure out a way, instead of stomping about like a stupid bull, yelling at me." She spoke calmly although inwardly she was at least as agitated as he was.

"Right, well, you've had longer to think about this than I have, so where has it got you?"

"We leave."

She'd been circling the words in her mind for some time; it was just as well to say them aloud.

"Next plan. Your brother would find us no matter where we went."

"We have to leave Westeros," she said patiently.

He stared at her and then said with soft seriousness, "Let me tell you all the reasons why that is a terrible idea. First. Neither of us has ever set foot on a ship. Second, we have no way of getting on one, unless you sleep on a pile of gold I don't know about, and third, your brother would follow us to the end of the world."

"No he wouldn't," Arya said, choosing that point as the most easily rebutted. "He has his own problems to attend to."

He accorded her that with a wave of his hand. "What about the rest of it?"

"I don't know yet."

"Can't say I'm impressed with this plan so far."

Arya slid off the log and smoothed her dress down over her hips, instinctively rather than purposefully drawing his gaze. "Never mind, then. I'll go back now and tell my mother I shall be happy to wed Lord Waldron Frey and provide him with just..._bunches_ of heirs."

She started to march past him as he pressed thumb and forefinger to his temples and then reached out and swung her back. "Wait. All right, wait."

She raised an eyebrow. He released his grip on her elbow and let it slide down to her hand, then took her other one. His fingers warmed hers.

"When's this meant to happen?" he said quietly, after a few moments.

"Next year—maybe. It hasn't been settled yet."

"So we have time. We don't have to do anything now. Do as your family says. Don't give them any reason to keep an eye on you, right? And you and me..."

He paused for a moment. "We can't meet. Not just for talking, no, Arya—" because she started to object. "Not unless you need me."

"I do need you," she muttered.

His eyes kindled.

"I mean I don't really _need_ you. I'm not going to die without you or something, like the songs say," she added, sulkily.

"That's more like it."

She walked forward, into his chest. For a second she thought he might deny her that, too, but she heard him sigh and then he put his arms around her. They stood like that for a brief time. She rested her head against his collarbone. Again the light around them was fading, giving way to evening.


	7. Chapter 7

For the next while, Arya threw herself into household duties with unwonted fervor, intending to wear herself out so that there would be no room for boredom. She still escaped in the afternoons for her solitary sword practice, but otherwise stayed close to the castle. She sewed diligently while listening to Catelyn's homilies on the duties of a woman and a wife, and held her tongue except to agree with what was said to her. It galled her to behave so, but it appeared that she was making her way back in her mother's good graces.

She did not see Gendry except for once when he had been bringing some work up to the castle and she spotted him crossing the yard and speaking with one of the men. She watched from the balcony while he was there, and though he didn't stay long, Margit later came to Arya's room with a knowing smile and said, "_Someone_ left this for you," and placed a piece of burlap in her hand.

Arya unfolded the material to reveal a small purple thorn-flower, its color as deep and lustrous as its tiny spikes were sharp.

"Those grow all along the roadsides," Margit sniffed, adding, "He might have brought you a _real_ flower."

"Not everyone can have a glass garden," Arya said. Later she placed the flower right at her bedside with her candle so that it was the last thing she looked at before she blew out the light.

One afternoon Robb invited her to come along with him to spend a few days at nearby House Cerwyn. Catelyn gave her permission and Arya jumped at the chance to do something different. It was good to inhale the crisp snow-air and see the hills stretching out ahead of them as they rode south accompanied by a small contingent of men. As they slowed their mounts to traverse a narrow cut through the woods, Robb said, directing his horse near to hers, "Have you been getting along with Mother lately?"

"I've been trying," Arya answered, although the truth was she avoided Catelyn as much as possible.

"Having difficulties being domestic, are you?"

She threw him a grateful look. "So much. Mostly I think I'd rather live on a mountaintop."

"Is it that bad?"

"It's just—not for me. I bring trays to Sansa, and I sit with Bran, and I chase Rickon around when I can find him, but I can't wait to get away from all of them."

"Perhaps you'll feel differently when it's your own place and your own children."

"Perhaps," she said, thinking with distaste of bearing a brood of her own. At least when she'd flung that comment at Gendry about providing Frey heirs he hadn't seemed to like the idea any better than she did. But the vision, unbidden, came to her mind of Gendry cradling a baby resembling both him and her and it didn't seem quite so unpalatable.

Embarrassed, she slapped the reins against the horse's neck and moved faster ahead, putting an end to the conversation.

* * *

Gendry rolled over in bed. The winter wind was screeching through the gaps in the ill-constructed house, but it was his thoughts, not the cold, keeping him awake.

He wasn't such a fool as to believe even for a moment that someone like himself belonged with someone like Arya Stark.

Even the unlikeliest of the Frey lordlings was still a step—a big step—above him. This could not be gainsaid. And he was too naturally pragmatic to consider it unfair. It was neither fair nor unfair; it was just the way things were.

His path and Arya's had become even less likely to intersect. Even if the practicalities of fleeing Westeros could be arranged, it was madness to consider going away, pretending things were different, pretending they needed nothing but the other. For all her restlessness, family meant a great deal to Arya and he couldn't steal that from her.

Right now all she could see was the need to run—and he could see it, too, especially when the alternative was watching her swept away to some other man's fortress, but he knew that later, when she was older, she would not forgive him for having brought them into self-imposed banishment.

For himself he didn't care. What was in the seas, or across them, meant nothing to him. He would live there with her if there were a few rocks of habitable size. Hadn't he already come the length of this entire country just for her?

But he had no idea where to go from here.

None that made any sense, anyway.

It was pure folly, even considering being together. She would go off and be married, and she would never want for anything, even if she did have to bear a dozen brats to some poxy lord—he gritted his teeth—and he would do what he'd always done: work, keep his head down, stay out of trouble. That was the only reasonable answer. He just had to find a way to convince himself to accept it.

And when he had convinced himself, he would need to convince Arya as well.

He was not looking forward to that.

* * *

Arya came back from her stay at Castle Cerwyn in an improved frame of mind. Not only had the change of scenery been refreshing, she had discovered that one of their men had recently returned from White Harbor, the port from which they would have to leave if her plan was to go through. Over the course of several conversations, she had mined information from the man, whose knowledge and experience of ships and seafaring rendered him easily able to answer her casual questions.

Her good mood was short-lived, however, as the day after returning to Winterfell she fell sick and had to take to her bed. She suspected poorly-prepared food, but Catelyn pronounced the cold weather to have been the cause and chastised Robb, saying they should have remained at House Cerwyn until she was recovered. Regardless, Arya felt better after a few more days had passed, and she had grown tired of lying about.

Ostensibly taking a leisurely stroll about the grounds, she stole out instead to the winter town. Even though Gendry had told her to stay away, she felt he wouldn't be angry to see her now. And he didn't look angry, but he didn't look pleased, either, and so she started out the conversation feeling defensive.

He was hammering away at something circular. She perched on a nearby stool behind a tall wooden gate, partially sheltering her from view of anyone who might happen to walk by.

"It'd be _easy_. To board a ship. I got lots of details. Why aren't you saying anything?"

"I'm thinking."

"That'd be a first," she muttered. She'd thought he would have shared her enthusiasm. Evidently not. Maybe he was angry because he was stuck here waiting. She would have hated that, too. This realization made her feel a tiny bit more charitable.

She watched him a little longer. His movements were different. No one else would have noticed; he wasn't throwing things about, his face was contained, but there were subtleties in the way he turned, reached for tools, an economy of action that wasn't quite right.

"What?"

He crouched to eye the evenness of what he was working on, looked past it at her. "I don't think this is going to work."

"That?"

"This."

Warily she swung her legs down. "What are you saying exactly?"

"I don't want you to waste your life."

"I thought that's why we needed a plan."

"We need," he said, "to be sensible. _You_ need to be sensible."

"Fine. Tell me, then."

"I know I'm not good enough for you, right? Don't need to argue...it's not an opinion...it's the way it is. I'm common...you're a lord's daughter. Getting on a ship doesn't change that—it doesn't make it right. I can't have you going on, thinking this can happen, it's making it harder than it has to be." He stopped and took a breath, holding it for a moment.

"Are you done?"

He nodded.

"Do you mind telling me why you changed your mind?"

"I didn't. Not about you, that never changed. But I can't let you think we can go off together. I want you to know that _now_."

She said nothing.

"You're angry." He dropped a piece of metal into the water bucket and it sizzled in counterpoint to his statement.

"No," she said, watching the steam rise in tiny curlicues upwards. The truth was, angry didn't seem to encompass the depth of her vexation. But she lacked the energy to express it. Maybe it was that the sickness still had its hold on her. She realized she felt strangely tired. She leaned back against the gate and closed her eyes for a moment. A smell of someone's noontime cooking fire was wafting down the open street. She ought to have been hungry, having skipped breakfast, but the food scent was making her nauseated instead.

"Arya." Gendry had put down his work. "You all right?"

"I think so," she said, with some vagueness, and then contradicted herself, "only I don't feel very well."

He came to her side, wiping blackened hands on his leather apron and then touching only slightly less-dirty knuckles to her cheek. He muttered a few choice words. "You're sick."

"I was," Arya agreed, "but I'm better."

"Like hell you are."

She slid off the stool to prove that she was well. Swaying, she announced, "I think I should be going."

"The only place you're going is to bed." He put an arm under her legs and swung her up against his chest.

"Whose bed," she murmured curiously.

"Mine, unless you know one nearer."

"I don't think," Arya said, as he carried her off, "my family would approve of this."

"I'll deal with them."

Moments later they were in the tiny upstairs room and he was tucking furs around her. She amused herself by imagining her mother's face upon knowing she was in Gendry's bed.

"What'd you get sick from?" he asked.

"My castle visit, I expect. Maybe that sailor gave me a foreign illness. Most probably," she said dreamily, "I will die."

He gave a grunt of disgust, but scanned her face anxiously.

"You can go back to work. I'll just lie here."

"I wouldn't put it past you to climb out the window."

"No. I'm too tired."

He went towards the door.

"Gendry."

"Mm." He waited.

"Stay with me until I fall asleep."

"All right." He came and sat on the edge of the bed, careful to remain on top of the furs. She shifted to make room for him.

"Hurry up then," he said, with brusqueness, though when he put his hand on her head again it felt gentle.

Arya closed her eyes.

Once she appeared to be sleeping more deeply, Gendry hailed a boy outside and persuaded him by means of a coin to carry a message to Winterfell.

Robb Stark rode up by midafternoon.

"She's upstairs, m'lord. I would have brought her to you myself only I didn't know how your lady mother would feel about that."

"Well," Robb said, dismounting and looping the reins of the animal about the gatepost, "she won't be delighted with this arrangement, either, but as it's done, we won't cavil. How long has Arya been here?"

"Since midday. I told her I'd work to do but she wanted to stay. Then she wasn't fit to make her own way back."

Robb followed him up the stairs and into the room, and Gendry lingered by the door as the other young man went over to the bedside.

Though the air was cool enough to see one's breath, Arya's cheeks were flushed. In sleep she had flung off some of the furs.

Robb murmured her name, touching her face. She came awake with a reluctant sigh.

"Can you ride?"

She nodded at him without apparent comprehension of the question, then her eyes sought out Gendry in the background.

He stood, feet apart, hands behind his back in an unconscious denial of obligation now that her brother had arrived.

"My head hurts," she said after a while. "It's hot in here."

"I'm taking you back home," Robb said gently. "You're not well yet." He eased her into his arms. She didn't resist, curling up against him.

"Do you want me to come with you, m'lord?" Gendry asked.

"I think I can manage."

Gendry followed him anyway, as Robb brought Arya carefully back down the stairs and outside to the waiting horse. For a moment Robb hesitated, trying to decide if he should set Arya on her feet while he mounted, but Gendry put himself in front of them, holding out his arms for the burden that was no burden. Robb silently passed her over to him, his eyes searching Gendry's, looking for some explanation that could not be given in words, how it was that he took her so comfortably, so naturally.

Robb swung up on the horse, and Gendry came close enough to lift Arya up to him, except she had already let her head fall under his chin and her arms had gone around his neck.

He felt his face heat. She was fevered and half-asleep and probably it seemed natural to her, but Robb's eyebrows were drawing together. Gendry suddenly recalled with ironic clarity how he'd stated: _no one's a bad lord until someone gets too close to his sister_.

He almost felt as if he ought to apologize, but that might make it worse. Nothing to be done. He untangled Arya's arms from around his neck and swung her up. Robb settled the girl's slight frame in front of him, gathering his voluminous cloak around her, and nudged the horse forwards, with only the briefest glance by way of goodbye.

Gendry stood by the gate in the blowing wind and watched until they disappeared down the muddy, half-frozen street and around the bend out of view.

Silly, but he suddenly felt unaccountably lonely.

He returned indoors and laid another chunk of wood on the hearth against the cold night to come.

* * *

Back at Winterfell, returned to her bed, Arya slept through the rest of that day until into the next morning. When she awoke, her mother was sitting at her side, with no recriminations for her disappearance, or any mention of where she had been.

"Drink this; it will take your fever down." Catelyn helped her to sip at the lukewarm tea. Her hands were tender as they smoothed damp hair away from her forehead. "How do you feel?"

"Tired." Arya sank back down. Her head felt thick and muddled, her bones old and languid. What had Gendry said to her?_ I don't think this is going to work_. He was giving up on the idea of them. Telling her she should accept the fate that had been assigned to her by virtue of her birth and her sex—the fate that said _you will marry a high lord and rule his castle._

Tears of disappointment and frustration began to brew in her eyes.

"I want to go back to sleep," she mumbled, hoping that Catelyn would take her leave.

"Shall I stay?"

"No, thank you."

"Do you want me to have Margit sit with you?"

"I want to be left alone. Please, Mother."

"Very well." Catelyn rose, and Arya could hear her standing over her for a moment, undecided, before moving towards the door. "I will check in on you later," she added.

Do, or do not, it makes little difference to me, she thought.

_I can make my own plan. I don't need Gendry...or anyone. I don't need _anyone.

But she felt weak and exhausted and she lacked the will to encourage herself, it was all too much to bear thinking about, as long as her body felt clutched in the grip of whatever illness had a hold upon it. Instead Arya turned over, pressed her face into the cushions and tried to return to the quiet of her dreams.

In the next few days, though she woke and slept in more normal amounts, she still pretended to be sleeping whenever Catelyn came to check on her. Maester Luwin came, too, and Arya grudgingly allowed him to examine her, ask her a few questions, and administer some tinctures. She heard him talking to Catelyn out in the hall after the visit but they were speaking too softly to hear what was said.

Robb came, sitting down at her side and smiling. "I've been by, but you were sleeping. Is that all you mean to do? How about getting better?"

She grimaced wanly but had no answer.

"Maester Luwin says your fever is gone. Don't you want to eat?"

Arya shook her head.

"All right. There is no one you want to sit with you?"

"No. I just want to be alone," she repeated.

He patted her shoulder, bracingly, and said he would come to see her again. And he did, and so did the maester, and even Catelyn with a sort of desperate intensity determined to talk to her daughter, but she could not be induced to eat anything or to bear their presence for more than a few moments at a time.

When even Sansa came, to Arya's darkened sense of humor that proved an amusing visit, because it was hard to determine which of them was more apathetic; for once she was challenging her sister in that role. Apathy was a funny thing, she thought, almost like a muscle; the more you exercised it, the easier it became to employ.

Margit came with a no-nonsense manner and insisted on helping to wash her hair and giving her a sponge bath. Arya submitted, but then dismissed her.

A few more days passed, and she had no desire to get out of bed. She drank plenty of tea and broth, yet left the rest of her food untouched.

Maester Luwin told her one afternoon that there was no reason she should not be up and about and back to all her normal doings, and that she was worrying her mother unnecessarily. Arya wanted to reply that she didn't care, but instead argued that she was not fully recovered, and since she had almost convinced herself that this was true, he left her room looking irresolute.

Catelyn tried once to speak in a stern manner about her responsibilities and duties, but gave up when she could see her daughter's eyes grow filmy with indifference.

One time Arya woke from a nap and the hour of the day was indiscernible. A few candles sputtered low nearby. She couldn't see light from the window, but they might have been shuttered (she had asked for them to be kept so). She heard her mother and brother's low tones from just beyond the door. It sounded as if they were arguing. Catelyn's voice in angry denial, Robb's in calm insistence.

"—there is no reason why she can't—"

"—might not be that simple."

"But surely—"

She put a cushion on top of her head and began to drift off, not into sleep, but into a vague state of meditation whereby she attempted to recall large passages of text from some of her favorite works. Eventually she stopped hearing anything else but her own internal voice.

The next morning, there was a tap at the door.

She didn't respond; she hadn't been bothering. Whoever it was would come in anyway; Margit with a tray of tempting delicacies that didn't tempt her, or her mother with another of Maester Luwin's foul-tasting concoctions.

Idly she angled her head around to where she could see the visitor.

It was Gendry standing there.

He stared at her for a moment, glanced back in the hallway as if for confirmation, then came in. After another instant he closed the door after him. And looked back at her.

So incongruous it was to see him in her room that she nearly laughed.

"What are you doing here?" she said finally, to break the silence.

"They asked me to come."

"What for?" She picked at the embroidery on the cushion she was clutching to her chest.

He came a few steps closer.

"You look very clean," she said. She didn't intend for it to sound hateful, although coming out it sort of did.

"I washed up. Did you think I wouldn't, when I was sent for? _You_ look like a corpse."

"I do not," she said, provoked by his tone which was a combination of contempt and matter-of-fact observation. "Margit did my hair yesterday, and this is a new night-dress."

"Well, you're as skinny as a scare-crow. Aren't they feeding you? Or aren't you eating?"

Arya shrugged.

He crossed over to the window and began to pull the shutters open.

"Don't," she said, squinting against the unaccustomed flood of brightness.

"You need air in here. Light too." A blast of fresh winter wind skittered across the floor.

"I'll get sick again."

"Ought to be ashamed of yourself."

Arya stuck out her lip and returned her gaze to the threadwork on the cushion. "If you have only come here to say the same things as the others, you might as well spare your breath. I'm not well."

He came, grabbed a three-legged stool, shoved it next to the bed and swung a leg over it, sitting with a challenging thump. "What's wrong with you then?"

In the airily apathetic manner that had been working thus far she said, "The maester does not know for certain."

"I think I do."

"Oh yes?" She regarded him with regal indifference.

He leaned in close and said, "_Nothing_."

"You are offensive."

"Yeah, well, you'll have to forgive me, m'lady, because I'm thinking you've probably had all the hand-holding you're going to get."

She had missed him. So much. The awareness of it suddenly struck her powerfully. She almost threw the cushion at his head in her happiness. Though, of course, she was still irritated by his cavalier assumptions. Those weren't to be ignored.

"There's no need for you to stay," Arya said, "if you don't care to attempt to behave like a gentleman."

"I didn't come here to learn about being a gentleman, nor sit by your bed and pour drinks for you, neither. We're going out."

"Are you mad? It's cold. I am not going anywhere. I will have a relapse." She tucked the furs securely and pointedly around her legs.

He pulled them off and threw them on the floor.

Arya's mouth made an O. "You pick those up."

He folded his arms.

"I'll call someone."

"Go on then."

"Whatever I say, they will believe me over you."

He shrugged and observed—"You're getting some color in your face now, that's good."

"Seven hells! I am not leaving this bed."

"You promised me, remember?"

"What?"

"You swore you'd do what I said. So this is it. We're going out."

She stared at his uncompromising expression. "Does it have to be that?"

"Yes."

"I don't want to."

"Just the same, that's what it is. Put something on." He rose.

"Oh, now you are going to help me get dressed?"

"I'm waiting outside. But I'll come back and you better be ready when I do. Want your maid?"

"No," Arya said. "I'll do it myself."

He raised an eyebrow at her and headed for the door.

Once he was gone she slid off the bed. Her legs felt shaky, but she managed to find a dress, which she put on over top of her night-gown. Then one of her fur-lined cloaks, and her boots. She looked at Needle hanging in its scabbard on one of the hooks. She missed that, too.

She went and sat back down on the bed until Gendry poked his head around the door.

Rejoining her, he took her arm and placed it in the crook of his elbow. "Let's go."

She hesitated once they were at the threshold of the door. "Are there people about? I don't want to see anyone."

"Your brother's waiting by the stairs. I haven't seen Lady Stark."

She shuffled alongside him down the passage.

Robb met them with a look of surprise. "You're up," he exclaimed. "Good girl."

"Where are we going?" Arya said with some crossness.

"Wherever you want," Gendry answered, just as Robb said, "You shouldn't go beyond the walls..."

They exchanged glances. "The godswood then," Arya said.

Gendry looked at Robb, and after a moment her brother nodded.

It did feel better to breathe clean air again, though Arya found her legs beginning to tingle by the time they reached the godswood's main gate. She tipped her head back to look at the white sky, in which a couple of crows were dipping and swooping, but she had to look away, it was too bright.

Gendry's hand slid down to hers, squeezing it. "Coming?"

They went within, but it took a while to reach the weirwood at the heart of the godswood and Arya was tired by the time they did. She sank down on the bench with some relief.

"You can't tell me this isn't better than sitting up in your room."

"I will have to get used to it, though, won't I? Since you're set on sending me off to House Frey."

"I'm not set on anything, least of all you getting married which you're too young for—just said I couldn't offer anything better."

"Anything," she said emphatically, "would be better than being stuck at the Twins for the rest of my life."

"Says the spoiled lord's daughter."

She pushed him. "Shut up. If I'm so spoiled how is it that I don't get what I want?"

"You will always get what you want," he said without hostility.

They sat in silence for a space, soaking up the quiet. Arya stared at the snow-dappled moss on the ground. The cold from the bench was seeping through the layers of fabric around her. She shivered.

"How did you come today?"

"I told you, your brother sent for me."

"But what did he _say_?"

"Said they couldn't do anything with you."

Arya snuggled into her cloak, feeling a blend of sheepishness and guilty pride. "And?"

"And you and me had some kind of connection he didn't understand and wasn't sure he even wanted to, but he asked me to come up and talk to you. And I said, how did Lady Stark feel about that, and he said she was fine with it—but he was lying, then," Gendry concluded frankly. "He and you have the same face when you lie—anyway, I said I couldn't promise anything but I would see you."

"Hmph," Arya said. "And then, I expect, you'll disappear again."

"Oi." He turned his head to look at her, but she looked down and pressed her lips together because she could feel them starting to tremble. Out of a growing anger.

"This is what I'm saying, right...it's not going to work, not when you are who you are, and I am who I am."

She hated the compassion in his eyes. "Stop talking to me like I don't know who we are. You're going to be so sorry, do you know that? Because I'm—" She sprang to her feet, unsteadily. "Well, first I'm going to get strong again, and then I'm going to be on my way."

He reached out but she knocked his hand aside. "And I thought you could be part of that, but you're talking like you don't want to or you can't, I don't know which one but I don't care. I won't let you tell me that you're done with me. _I_ am done with _you_."

She stormed away from the weirwood tree, her legs aching but it was a good ache because it helped to ease the anger somehow. He caught up with her easily, and would have taken her arm but she turned such a look on him that he held up his hands and simply followed behind instead.

* * *

Less than a month later, the household of Winterfell was turned on its end.

Arya Stark, having recovered from her short stay abed, was gone in the night. As were a few of her personal possessions, her sword, Needle, and one of the stable horses.

All Gendry could think when Robb came to him looking for any kind of useful knowledge he might possess, was that she had warned him.

_First I'm going to get strong again, and then I'm going to be on my way._

He'd thought it was nothing more than an empty threat, the sort a thwarted child might devise.

It hadn't been. It had been her plan. And she had meant to bring him into it, but he had refused.

There were no words for that kind of knowledge, that kind of guilt. He told Robb Stark he knew nothing. And perhaps because of his genuine dismay, Robb believed him, and went away no wiser.

Clearly, they had all underestimated the depth of Arya's determination. All there was left to do was hope that her flight had been poorly enough executed that she would be returned to Winterfell both safely and in short order.

But the days passed, and no one could find her.


	8. Chapter 8

She was back at Winterfell.

All was quiet outside, save for a few animals skittering about. Indoors, the rooms were cold and empty. Though she wandered about expecting to hear the echoes of brotherly laughter or the clatter and rustle of house-servants at their work, smell the tang of northwood-fed fires and the bundles of lavender fragrancing the air, there was nothing.

_It's a dream, Arya. It's not real. There could never be nothing at Winterfell._

But Robb was descending the stairs.

She looked up at him, unsure whether to feel hopeful, to smile, unsure whether he was angry. All this time had passed, and she had not even sent word to let them know she was safe and well. As well as she could be. Still searching.

Still lost, in her own way. Though she was an adult now, with sixteen namedays behind her.

"Mother's dead," Robb said.

He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, a few feet from where she stood, close enough that she could see tiny lines around his eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said, not certain where the apology came from. Sorry for not being here, perhaps. Sorry that she hadn't had the chance to say goodbye.

_Is it a dream?_

He wouldn't tell her if it was or not.

"Why did you come back?"

"It felt like it was time," she said, as honestly as she could. He deserved her honesty, this brother who was lord of Winterfell now.

She noticed someone drifting into view at the top of the stairs. He followed her gaze to the woman standing there, in a grey gown.

"My wife," he said, and in those two words there was neither pride nor distaste, just a calm statement. "Nyssa, formerly of House Frey."

The woman was pale and plain and said nothing.

Robb did not complete the introduction. It had been so long since Arya had declared herself that for a moment she didn't know what to say. She was not Arya of House Stark. Not really. It would be presumptuous to say so.

"I am Robb's sister," she said finally. The woman called Nyssa didn't acknowledge her, just continued to stare without expression. Arya wondered if the woman were simple. She looked back at Robb. He had done his part. He had kept their mother's bargain. The choice was to be respected, since she had not been able to.

"Where are the others? Sansa, Bran, Rickon?" She kept her voice level.

"They are gone," he said, with a trace of a humorless smile.

"Gone," she repeated stupidly.

"Like you were gone."

"Robb," she said uncertainly, "I don't want to play this game."

"It's not a game."

_This dream. I don't want to be in this dream._

_ The screams from the crowd, blood-hungry, Yoren grabbing her, the birds scattering overhead..._

No, that was another dream.

When would she find something to stop the dreams?

That reminded her.

Gendry.

"Where's Gendry?" she said, suddenly with more urgency.

"Who?"

"No, Robb, you remember. My blacksmith. He made weapons for you. He was in the winter town. He must be there. He is still there, isn't he?" She could feel a touch of panic winding its way up from her stomach, into her throat and creeping out through her words.

"You're worried?" There was that smile again. It scared her. This was not unfolding the way she wanted it to.

This might not even be Robb.

"No," she said, more calmly.

"Why do you need to know where this person is?"

Honesty with this not-Robb, after all? She couldn't be sure. The look in his eyes suggested he'd know if she were lying to him.

"He means something to me."

"More than your own family?"

"Maybe," she said, feeling the tightness in her chest increase. "I don't know."

"Go look for him, if you must. Search the land. As others have searched for you."

His tone was menacing. She backed away, glancing upstairs. Nyssa looked imperious now. Lady Nyssa of Winterfell.

Catelyn was dead. Her brothers and sister were dead? Gendry was...

She couldn't think it.

_I don't want to be in this dream._

She repeated the sentence over and over, willing herself awake. She was freezing. The blanket had been kicked off the musty bed in the tiny White Harbor inn room.

Ridiculous to fear going home. Home would be as she left it. Everyone would be where she had left them. She grabbed the waterskin from the floor, drinking its contents down by immense gulps, though it did nothing to quell the dry ache in her throat. Too much ale the night before, perhaps, although that usually helped to keep the dreams away...it hadn't worked this time.

Someone banged on the door of her room. She slid both feet off the bed quicker than thought, her hand on Needle, her heart sent into an erratic double-time from the unexpectedness of the sound. "What is it?"

"Breakfast, m'lady."

The appellation so familiar, and yet from so long ago, the voice of a man, but not one she recognized. She stalled for a moment outside the door. Surely she should not answer.

"I didn't send for any," she said at last.

"Went to some trouble to bring it to you," was the reply.

After a little longer she unbolted the door, weapon at the ready.

It was an elderly Stark bannerman, one she'd seen at table in Winterfell a number of occasions, a cautious smile of greeting on his square good-natured face. "Thought it was you, m'lady."

Arya decided it was best to let him in and close the door again. It was unnerving to be back in Westeros only one day and to be known for who she was. Perhaps she had not changed all that much? She had let her hair grow, and there was never much in the way of food, so she had remained somewhat scrawny. It pleased her anyway to be able to hide in men's clothing the figure that she had. Certainly she was taller, though she didn't expect to ever match Sansa's graceful height.

Barden was his name, she recalled. "Have you come from Winterfell?" Arya asked, showing him to the table.

He shook his head. "I've not been there in months."

"Are things..." She wasn't sure how to phrase what she meant. "As they were?"

"You were gone a long time, lady Arya," he hedged. "I don't know if it should be me the one to tell you."

"You must," she said, with instinctive, long-suppressed authority. "Whatever you know, I must know. Please," she added, as an afterthought.

He fidgeted, big hands in his lap. "I am very sorry, but your lady mother passed on. It's been some time..."

He looked at her rather helplessly. She stared back, able only to think of the dream, trying to go back through it in her mind, order and organize it so she could remember. Had it been a vision of some kind? Could it still be true, even now, even in the light of day?

_No._

"My siblings?"

"They are well as far as I know. Your brother Robb is the lord now. Married a Frey lass shortly after Lady Stark's passing."

She closed her eyes momentarily.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "Must be a shock to you. Any way I can help? Send a message, or..."

She tried to concentrate, and when she looked at him again she had summoned up the ability to speak calmly. "I need coin. I spent my last on shipfare."

"I'll give you what I have, not much, but will get you safely home. I would bring you back myself if I could." He hesitated. "Perhaps I ought."

"No. I will be fine. Thank you. I'll see you repaid as well. I will go home."

"I'm glad to hear it," he said.

She bade him not apprise anyone of her return, saw him out and was left blessedly alone again. The bread he had brought sat untouched while she stayed at the table, trying to marshal her thoughts. Till now she had been in no particular rush to reach Winterfell; it had been enough just to make the journey from Essos, to find herself back on home shores. Then she had thought she would see how fate led her. But the dream, and its partial confirmation, had shaken her up. Now her instincts urged to hurry. That perhaps something or someone was waiting in the balance.

She stole a horse for the journey from White Harbor to Winterfell. She was not proud of the act, but the coins she had gotten from her kinsman would not have gone far enough; they only furnished her with food and a few extra supplies. While living overseas, she had fallen into a pattern of necessary thievery, since a woman of no name had only one currency and she'd had no intention of using that if she didn't have to. Learning how and when to steal what she needed had been the hardest test initially, requiring discipline of a different kind. Once you became proficient at something, using it at the first impulse was hard to fight against. She had intended to put that behind her in Westeros; it belonged to that part of her life, but now that she was going home, she needed to make a new start.

Or so she had told herself. But she had known she couldn't spend a month or two on a trip that only needed to take a fortnight—not when there was that uncertainty of what awaited her in Winterfell driving her on. Grimly riding north, she sent an unspoken apology to the mare's true owner, promising herself this truly would be her last act of theft.

She was relentless, pushing the horse well beyond its normal ability most days, often rising well before sunup and not stopping for the night until after it was dark. Neither she nor the mare were used to such riding. In Essos only her feet had conveyed her everywhere she went. For the first few nights Arya curled herself into a blanket bundle and fell asleep to the singing of the wind and the aching of her backside and legs. She didn't bother with a fire or hot food unless she was chilled beyond bearing. Though she looked after the animal as well as she knew how, she feared the punishing terrain and their madcap pace might do it irreparable damage. For that, too, she apologized wordlessly.

Loneliness assailed her at times, catching her off guard as she traveled, for though the shape of the land was familiar, though all she encountered—and avoided—were her own countrymen, she felt inexplicably out of place now, in a manner she had not felt across the Narrow Sea. She couldn't explain this sense of isolation even to herself, but once, in front of the only fire she constructed, when the journey was at its halfway point, she spoke aloud into the night. Spoke to the horse, who whuffled uncertainly, unused to hearing her voice. Spoke to the stars when she could see them, and to the bare trees. For it was still winter here. She talked about the things that had happened in her time away, both good and bad. She couldn't imagine telling anyone some of those things, but it was comforting, somehow, to say them into the night, into her northern skies.

Arya Stark—because that was who she told herself she was again, now, repeatedly—reached Winterfell with a spavined horse and a troubled spirit, in just under the fortnight she'd planned for.

Reassuringly, her ancestral home was normal in appearance, from a distance at least. There were animals in the fields, and along the road, people (some of whom might have recognized her if she hadn't been careful to keep her hooded cloak up, and not slow down).

Inside the castle itself, no one seemed to know what to do with her at first. Robb was not at home, nor was his lady wife, though they were expected back within the next few days. Arya realized she was grateful to be surrounded only by concerned retainers, most of whom she still knew. It gave her the chance to be escorted first to her old rooms, which had been kept spotless, though all her personal effects had disappeared from them. A fire was lit and a bath was drawn and the serving-women lingered nervously, asking her if anything else was needed. Clothing, she told them gravely; but no dresses. One of the older women hastened to find her appropriate substitutions for her own things: trousers, shirt and tunic.

When she asked after her other siblings, she was told that neither Bran nor Sansa was well and she could not be admitted to see either of them without Robb's presence and permission. She didn't object. Rickon was apparently somewhere about, if he could be found; wilder than ever after their second parent's death, it was implied.

At least they were all alive.

Arya took her hot bath, her first in a long time, soaking meditatively by the fire. There were still questions, there was still someone to be inquired after, but night was drawing near and she was exhausted from the travel. She was brought a dinner she couldn't eat half of, her stomach being unused to such elaborate castle fare, and then she climbed into her old bed which they had piled high with new furs and bedding. And she watched the fire until sleep overtook her, which wasn't long at all.

She woke even before the break of light, as had been her habit while on the road. She dressed in her new garments and spent some time sitting on her bed brushing out her hair, working out the knots and tangles until it fell smooth. She wasn't sure if her reflection was pleasing or not. All she could see was her fatigue-pale skin, dark brows, distrustful grey eyes looking back at her.

_I want to look well. But I look scrawny. He'll say so. Like he said the last time I saw him, on that last day: "__You're as skinny as a scare-crow. Aren't they feeding you? Or aren't you eating?"_

_He's angry. He'll be angry. No, worried._

_ Where's Gendry?_

_ Who?_

_ He's fine. He'll be fine. He'll be there, turning horseshoes, just like before. _She could even hear the clang of stone and steel, feel the heat from the blazing fire. _But...two years._ Nervousness settled in her stomach and stayed there all the while she slipped out of the keep, through the gates and down to the winter town.

It was still early. Smoke puffed from chimneys over the rooftops and lazily into the sky. The plaintive howl of a hungry dog echoed in the distance. She stood outside his gate. The house seemed a bit run-down to her perceptive eye; parts of the thatching were falling out, and stone was crumbling. But it wasn't abandoned. Here too, smoke emanated from above. Arya took a long breath of the cold wood-scented air, filling her lungs with it. She tightened her hands into fists and relaxed them again. She was not here for a fight, not here to thieve and run. She was here for...an old friend. Her only friend. That was what he was. What he still was, she hoped. Of course he would be distant at first, considering how she had left him—_though I did warn him. I did. _

She sidled towards the door, both drawn and hesitant, feeling a little like a bitten direwolf.

"Who's there?" A woman's voice, sharp with wariness, came from within.

_No one_. She heard her pulse thundering in her ears. "Arya Stark," she made herself say.

A pause. Then the door slid open a space.

They recognized each other. It was the girl—the woman—of the streets she and Gendry had met on the day they'd been late coming back to Winterfell. The other woman was beautiful. Tired, in a dirty gown, with a wary tilt to her head, but with lush dark curly hair not bound under a cap, a naturally red mouth. She opened the door a little more. "I remember you," she said, her voice softening somewhat. "Can I help with something?"

Arya tried to swallow the tension out of her throat. She had to speak, it was ridiculous to stand and stare like a simpleton. "May I come in?" She didn't want to come in, she wanted to run away.

The door widened to admit her. She stepped through, spotting almost at once a child's toy on the floor, a roughly-carved wooden horse with a length of twine. Other than that the main room was neat. A modest fire burned in the hearth and several garments, some tiny, were draped over a rack nearby to dry.

"I'm Rona," said the other woman, after closing the door against the outdoor chill. "You remember me too. Don't you?"

Arya nodded. She caught the inside of her cheek with her teeth and bit. The pain felt good. Punishing.

Rona watched her before gesturing at the table with its one bench. "Will you have some tea?"

She knew better than to refuse. The small-folk had little enough to offer; they disliked having it flung back in their faces. And she'd already identified herself as noble blood. There was no way to face each other as equals.

"Yes," Arya said, and sat, accepting the mug of brew. It smelled like mullein leaves. She inhaled its warmth, noticing how the liquid inside shook while she tried to control the trembling of her hands.

"I suppose you're looking for him." Rona's manner was matter-of-fact.

_Who?_

_Oh. Gendry. _ She imagined giving a casual laugh. _ I suppose I am. Be sure to mention I stopped by. I should be on my way. Thank you for the tea._

_ Seven hells, Arya, get control of yourself._

"You have a child," she said, not meaning to. But she couldn't drag her eyes off the wooden horse. Had his hands made it? Could you see something of the maker in such an object?

"I do," Rona said with a slight smile. "A boy."

"Who does he look like?" Why would she ask that? What kind of stupid self-inflicted torture was this?

"Like me."

Arya drank from the tea. It was so bitter she thought she'd gag. She forced herself to swallow. Punishment again. What for? For running perhaps. This was her dream. A version of it, anyway.

Rona crouched by the fire and laid another stick in the coals, blowing gently on them until they flared up.

She said, "He's not the father, if that's what you're thinking."

"It doesn't matter," Arya said, quickly, although it did, of course. "Where is he?"

"My son? Or—"

"Gendry," she said. She hadn't spoken the name aloud in so long.

"Gone south to the Riverlands," Rona said. "More than a year ago. He wanted to be involved with some sort of...brotherhood. I told him to go. He would have stayed if I insisted."

She watched Arya through dark lashes. Perhaps there was a touch of malice in her tone but it was hard to tell.

"But he left you alone?" Arya asked distantly.

"He provided for me, and the baby. He left us the house to stay in, with permission from your lord brother. It was more than I had before. And after, I made my living as I always have." She shrugged a narrow bare shoulder, revealed by her low-cut gown.

A wail issued from upstairs. Rona rose and went up, carrying down a nap-tousled toddler of indeterminate age on her hip. Arya couldn't help from searching the tiny face for features she knew. Black hair. The boy did resemble Rona. Beyond that it was impossible to say. He put two fingers in his mouth and tucked his head under his mother's chin, staring at Arya from the corners of his eyes.

"He looks healthy," she said. It was the only thing she could think of to say.

Rona set the toddler down on the floor by the wooden toy, which, after a moment, he hauled off to a corner, therewith to play. "And what about you, Arya Stark?"

"What about me?"

"You look—" The comment was altered, delicately: "You seem tired."

She said nothing to that.

"Your family must be very happy to have you back."

"Yes." Suddenly it was enough, she couldn't sit there any longer. She swallowed the tea to its dregs and set the mug down. "I must go."

"Do you mean to look for Gendry?" Rona followed her to the door.

Arya glanced back, but the other woman's gaze was direct, free of spite. "Would it trouble you if I did?"

Rona shook her head. "He is part of my past now."

_Part of your past_. The dismissive observation made Arya want to say something hateful, but she knew that she couldn't. As painful as the interview had been, it still seemed that Rona could have chosen to make it even more difficult, had she wished. For that she had to be grateful.

"If there's anything you need, either of you," she muttered, stepping outdoors, "let us know."

Rona watched her walk down the laneway.

But Arya couldn't look back. She didn't think she would ever come to the winter town again.


	9. Chapter 9

Three days later the return of Lord and Lady Stark to Winterfell was announced. Arya lingered at the top of the great stairs so she could observe them for a moment, before they actually had to meet. It reminded her uncomfortably of her dream, only their positions were reversed. She watched them from above. Nyssa Frey was plain enough, to be sure, although she seemed less the dumb creature from the dream and more in possession of a personality; she had a smile for her attendant maids gathering about her, taking her cloak, dusting off her skirts.

Robb looked as Arya remembered; her handsome brother, a bit older, the lines on his face no doubt due to his inherited responsibilities with the passing of Catelyn. Or perhaps the acquisition of a wife. It was impossible to tell from here what sort of relationship the two had; in front of the household, they were both smooth, collected, speaking neutrally. That was as it should be. What went on behind closed doors Arya didn't presume to care about, but she hoped uneasily that Robb was happy, and of course she had no ill will towards the Frey woman. Her new sister-in-law.

Robb was shaking off his furs, making a genial request over his shoulder of someone, and placing his hand on the stair railing to come up. When he saw Arya he halted nearly in mid-step.

She tried a tentative smile.

"Gods be good. Arya, is that you, or a visitation—" His voice was hoarse.

"It's me."

He bolted up the steps then, stopping just a few away. She was aware of all stilling below, Nyssa's eyes on her, everyone's eyes on her, a general murmur, Nyssa speaking coldly to those nearby.

She focused on her brother.

He took her arm, not roughly, but with a grip more steel than gentle, and ushered her away from the stairs, down the hall to the first available room.

"I cannot believe it," he said after a moment, when they were alone. "How long have you—"

"Only three days. I just got here."

"I was away a _month_. Why didn't someone ride for me as soon as you were seen? I would have come at once."

"You would have left your wife behind?" She tried to say it lightly, hoping to sense from his reaction the kind of feelings he had for Nyssa. His expression didn't change. "Don't blame anyone, Robb. I don't think they knew what to do."

"They should have _known_ what to do. Seven hells, we'd gone over it enough times in the last two years—" He put his hand to his forehead for a moment, as if to conceal his expression, and she felt a pang of unexpected remorse. She hadn't meant to bring grief to him, to any of her family, and yet it seemed feeble to say so, since that had obviously been the result. She gazed down at the floor, just listening to the silence for a while. When he looked up at her again his face was ragged. "You know about Mother?"

Arya gave her head a tiny nod. "How did it happen?"

"She just—gave up. And now I see Bran going, because of not being able to walk, and Sansa, with what happened to her...This family is falling apart."

"I'm sorry."

He looked her over, head to toe. "And you. You're not a child any more."

"I wasn't a child when I left," she said quietly, "not really."

"I suppose you weren't. Did you find whatever you were looking for?" He sounded bitter. She couldn't blame him for that.

"Sometimes I think that I did. Other times I'm not certain."

He held out a hand towards her, almost in resignation, as if he wanted to be angry, but could not manage it any longer. Arya took it. His fingers wrapped around hers, and he smiled, though there was constraint behind the expression. The old Robb would have embraced her, swept her around in the air with abandon.

There was too much to forgive, perhaps. Or he just needed more time.

"I need you to introduce you to someone," he said. "My wife. You'll take dinner with us? And we will talk more."

She murmured an assent, though her stomach hurt, she wished for neither food nor the lights of the great hall. Here so short a time and she was already thinking longingly of her bedroll outdoors and the dark sky. But this evening must be endured.

Nyssa Frey was cool but gracious enough at the time of introduction. She did not ask any awkward questions of Arya, remaining a quiet presence on Robb's other side at the table in the hall. Arya followed Robb's lead in the conversation, which dealt almost exclusively with future events, and general remarks on the state of Winterfell. She did ask him, with some diffidence, how long he had been married, and was told almost a year. She dared not inquire about offspring, but assumed that had a niece or nephew been born, it would have been mentioned by now. Looking surreptitiously past her brother at her new sister-in-law, Arya determined that Nyssa's figure was slim, with no indications of gravidity. She supposed that someone in the household would probably know the truth of the matter, but the idea of pressing one of them for details was irksome and felt beneath her, if she was not truly desperate to know.

Robb was convivial through the meal, as if to send the impression to all that Arya's return was simply a happy occasion, not to be questioned, but she knew he would have plenty to say to her in private. She was steeling herself against that.

When dinner was finally over and the fires were lowering, and Nyssa smoothly claimed fatigue and excused herself, Robb and Arya were left to themselves. She knew Robb would have let her go if she similarly protested her exhaustion, but it seemed preferable to get through this, all of it, as soon as possible.

The others were gone except for a lad sweeping up in a distant corner. Robb was taking a final swallow of his beer before setting down the mug and looking at Arya. She tilted her head sideways a little defensively.

"How did you _live_?" he said softly. "You left with nothing."

That wasn't strictly true; she had left with gold, though it had run out soon enough. She turned her palms upward on the table, uncertain what to say. _ I learned how to steal what I needed. I didn't eat for days at a time. I slept in...street gutters, horse barns, dark holes in the alleys._

"Perhaps I'm more resourceful than you thought."

"Perhaps you did things you don't want to tell me about."

She accorded him that with an inclination of her head.

"And I can't make you. I don't want to make you. I just want to understand, and I don't think I ever will."

"It's behind me now," she said, awkwardly. "Behind us. I am home. If I am welcome, that is."

"You could never not be welcome here, Arya." Something in his voice reminded her of their father. "But you should know that the Freys have not forgotten about the other half of Mother's promise."

She was silent, staring at the lines in her hands.

"Did you think that they would?"

"I didn't think about it at all." After a pause she said, lightly, "I suppose now that Nyssa has seen me I can't very well be dead, can I?"

"It's a matter of honor," Robb said. "This may be the price you must pay for your two years of—"

"Freedom," she supplied.

"I won't make the decision for you," he said, somber. "I will not try to keep you here, or drag you there. You understand? You're my sister. I don't want to sell you to the Freys. I never wanted that. I won't have you under lock and key. I don't think it would hold you anyway."

"Stop, Robb." Arya laid a hand on his arm. He was getting upset, while she felt herself oddly serene. "I understand. We must keep our word."

"I didn't want to marry her," he said, so quietly she had to guess, for a moment, at what he'd said.

"I know you didn't." He had had a lot to drink, she realized. "But is it—all right now?"

He made a funny sound in his throat. "We have no children."

"You are both still young," she said, mordantly amused by the idea of such words coming from a little sister. "Surely children will come."

"In the meantime." His eyes were red.

"You should go to her," Arya said. "It's getting late."

"She doesn't want me."

"I'm sorry," she said, inadequately, though he had sounded more matter-of-fact than self-pitying. "Goodnight, Robb."

He stood up.

"I will make preparations for travel to the Twins," she added. "Whenever you say."

He seemed uncertain now, scanning her face. Perhaps he thought she was jesting, although she was quite serious. Eventually he muttered his own goodnight and took his leave.

Arya stood in the hall a while longer, watching the boy sweep up the hearth and scraping the woodchips into the glowing embers, where they smoked, refusing to burst into flame.

In the afternoon, she made a pilgrimage to the godswood, wandering through to its heart where the weirwood tree stood, lingering there until misty twilight began to settle. She did not move, but thought. This was where she had last seen Gendry, this was where she had angrily left him.

_Oh, why couldn't you still be here? Why couldn't I have been granted the chance to say a proper goodbye, if the gods and promises demand it? Now it is unfinished, not right. _She sat uneasily, wanting to draw comfort from the ancient place, but the trees were reproachful in their silence, not a wind stirring to distract her from her own thoughts. _Your father is dead; your mother is dead. You have nothing but a pledge to tie you to them; dismiss it and they will be gone from you forever. _And she had given her brother her word now, too_. _Odd how a future she had resisted two years ago seemed less horrible than inevitable now. There were worse things than marrying a lord and living in a castle.

_That's not me,_ her younger-voice protested still.

But the passage of time had taught her there _were _worse things.

_I must do it. I am bound to do it._

_Why aren't you here?_

There were no answers in the trees. At last she unwound herself from the bench. Standing up felt like plucking roots from the ground. This too, would she ever see again? Was she not saying goodbye tonight? Her childhood was over.

* * *

She lost her temper with Robb only once in the days after that. A week or more had passed at Winterfell, and while having a quiet early breakfast together, Robb told her (with some diffidence) that he was preparing to send a raven to The Twins with the message of her return, and wait for further notification from the south. She asked why he was reluctant, when she had given her word; and he said they might yet do some thinking on the matter. This angered her, for she considered herself good as given to that household—it was only a matter of her physical transfer, and did he think she meant to run, this time? What would running serve, unless she wanted to hide forever, or risk vexing the Freys with losing her twice? Robb did not answer heatedly, but still counselled that they adopt a position of caution. It seemed like worrisome teasing to her, and she told him to inform the Freys that she would come at once.

"Unless you're implying," she said, spearing a chunk of roast venison on the end of her knife, "that they don't want me any more."

He looked uncomfortable. "I did not say that."

"No. You didn't. But the only other reason you hesitate is because you think I might not be ready. And I told you I was. I've had two years to be ready. If you don't mistrust me, you mistrust them."

"You're family," he said. "Of course I trust you...more. The truth is, we haven't had much contact with the Freys. Neither Nyssa nor I have visited yet, nor have any of them come up here. It is a long way to travel just to pay social respects."

Easily a two months' journey with a retinue. _The distance will still be as great,_ Arya thought, _once I am there. I will not be able to visit you, nor will you be able to leave your responsibilities at Winterfell to see me. _Her younger self might have said this aloud. Now she held her tongue. But it bleakly amused her to see that he seemed to be having his own doubts about the arrangement.

Robb opened his mouth again and closed it, then he avoided her eyes.

"What is it," she said, patiently. "If you must know, then ask."

"If something...if they should claim you are unsuitable—"

"Should the Frey not want me, I am sure he can find a reason to dispose of me. But I will tell you now; I go to them untouched." She knew her voice sounded somewhat hollow. It was, after all, scarcely the sort of conversation one expected to have over breakfast.

Robb looked vaguely shamefaced. "I don't think—a woman's value...depends on that alone."

"Well, that is very open-minded of you," Arya said, with a touch of asperity, "yet I have a hard time believing you would be so understanding had your own wife come to you with anything other than complete inexperience."

Her brother choked on his drink. After he had recovered he managed: "If we were low-born, it wouldn't perhaps matter so much, but we aren't, and it does."

"Well," she said. "It is as I told you. Send the raven."

So the conversation had finished.

She assumed that he had done as she'd requested, and life went on quietly enough for the next while. When the time was judged right, she was granted access to see Bran and Sansa, but their juxtaposed conditions only served to spur in her a deep, ineffable sense of pity. Bran's mind was sound, but his physical state deteriorated to the point that he was, as Robb had said, giving up; and Sansa was well enough in body, but not quite in her head. It was easy to see, after these visits, why Robb felt more than ever burdened with the responsibility of providing an heir for Winterfell.

There was nothing of any significance for Arya to pass the time with, since she considered herself between houses now; she was unable to bring herself to visit any of the outlying cottages or peoples she had been so friendly with before. There was reading, but she could not concentrate. She slept late into the mornings, and in the afternoons took long walks around Winterfell, choosing paths she knew to stand the least chance of bringing her in contact with anyone. She tried to eat well, and on the days her walks were longest she did have a decent appetite, and yet, whenever she caught her reflection somewhere it told her she looked ghostlier than ever.

She felt, too, that she ought to make some effort at getting to know her sister-in-law; but practically, it seemed a waste, when they would scarcely see each other again. For now, she encountered Nyssa only when they ate communal dinner every night. It had occurred to her to ask Nyssa for some details as to what sort of man she was engaged to, but it was almost irrelevant. Good or bad (or something in between, as most men were) her future husband already was whatever he was, and knowing about it couldn't alter that.

Robb showed her the return message when it arrived, handing it to her without a word.

The Freys bade her come, with no effusive expressions of goodwill or details of wedding plans. Arya rather preferred the simplicity of the summoning, but she could see Robb remained ambivalent. He told her he wished he could accompany her himself, but that it would have him too long away from Winterfell. In the end he selected half-a-dozen of what she knew were his most trusted men to be her companions, charged with her care and safe delivery to the seat of House Frey. Arya knew she could make the journey faster on her own but there was no point in even suggesting it. Even had Robb tacitly admitted that the past two years had proved her ability to survive alone, a high-born lady did not simply show up, unattended, on her fiancé's doorstep.

They said their farewells on a cool grey morning. The horses, eager to be on their way, stamped and snorted in the courtyard.

Composed, Arya settled her new fur cloak around her shoulders and fastened it at her throat.

Robb's smile was strained. "Send word once you've arrived. And again once you've had some time to settle in."

"I will," she promised.

* * *

_**Author's Note: The following chapter (Chapter 10) will be a very short (400 words) and non-explicit flashback describing a non-consensual experience that happened to Arya in the time away from Winterfell. I've posted it as a stand-alone, as some may find it triggering and/or choose to skip it. It's not necessary to understanding the story, except to know that it occurred.**_


	10. Chapter 10

_ Untouched, she'd said she was. It wasn't true._

_ She knew him. He was older, not much older, but he knew a lot more. All the good things. How to steal without getting caught. Where to scrounge for food. Where, and who, to stay away from._

_ She didn't trust him, not yet, but she was beginning to. Out of necessity if for no other reason. It was hard to be on your own in foreign lands, only a few months after crossing the sea. Everyone among them—the thieves, the gutter-scroungers, the whores, the homeless—had their own network of allies; it was a vast underground of complicated relationships. She was the outsider, the truly nameless one._

_ He brought her some bread._

_ "Come here," he said, in the common tongue, but accented. He was smart, he spoke many languages. Dark-skinned and wiry, he had eyes that missed very little._

_ She shook her head, on alert._

_ "You can't hold out and fit in with us," he said. "You're nothing. I thought you already learned that lesson."_

_ "I'm not nothing," she said, angered. She tucked the bread away in a side pocket of her tunic._

_ He was at her side then, lithe like a snake, and she had let her guard down, Needle was not within reach and no one would care if she screamed. No one would come. There was not much to struggle against. He was too strong, and it was humiliating. It seemed less humiliating to submit in those next few moments._

_ She cursed him in her head. I could _never _be nothing._

_ He was done quickly, and got off her, and she rolled away, grabbing at her clothes, but not giving in to emotion just yet, not until he was gone. He would not see that from her. It meant less, that way._

_ He stood over her a moment, as if about to say something, then shrugged and left._

_ She flattened her back against the wall and dug out the bit of bread, consuming it voraciously to fuel her strength. She ate furiously in the dark, swallowing so fast it burned in her chest and stomach like pure fire._

_ She didn't succumb to sleep that night, and in the morning, she struck out for new lands._


	11. Chapter 11

Robb's men, some of whom Arya knew, were nearly reverentially respectful towards her, but as the days lengthened and numbered, the men grew more relaxed. She relaxed, too, to some degree, with the nights spent around fires. They had stories of Robb and of Winterfell that she found herself liking to listen to; it brought back something of the two years she'd missed.

She realized, somewhere along the way, that she was savoring even the travel itself; the constantly changing scenery, the task of riding. It might be her last journey anywhere, once she was installed with her new husband at The Twins. They would probably have her keep to some tower room day in and day out. And she could converse only with her gloomy in-laws, the unprepossessing lot she recalled from all those months waiting for Catelyn and Sansa to join them.

It was hard to imagine much of a future, but she tried not to let it occupy too much of her head. Rather she enjoyed the raillery of her good-humored companions, who, if they had any resentment over being sent on a four-month absence for the sole purpose of conveying a bride-to-be to her engaged, never showed it. It would have been easy for them to resent her, though if they did, Arya certainly couldn't tell.

When the two-month journey was over, and they were at the Twins, Walder Frey looked just as crotchety and ancient as he had the first time Arya had stood there in his great hall, his attending court just as untidy and scrofulous. His eyes were far more piercing now, as he took in every detail of her.

"In a hurry to be wed, eh?" he said. She couldn't tell from his tone what he was implying, exactly. Neither yes nor no was the right answer, that much she knew.

"I wait on your lord's convenience," she said at last, dipping. Not too deeply. She was wearing a split gown she'd designed herself; it draped like a regular dress at the bottom, fooling the eye, but was meant to be worn with leggings underneath that enabled her to run or fight.

"My convenience is to wait," he retorted.

"My lord?"

"Neither hide nor hair of you for all that time, nor word from your brother? And now you come knocking at the door? Aye, I think we'll wait."

Arya tightened her fists under the long sleeves of her gown.

"Waldron! Meet your intended." Lord Frey gestured at one of the men.

The man stepped forward, unsmiling. Perhaps somewhere in his twenties, he was no more or less ill-favored than any of them. Impossible to tell at this moment what kind of husband he would make, but Arya's initial impression was that he was no more eager to be married than she.

Or perhaps he just found her unattractive. That was also a possibility.

They exchanged formal greetings, and then shortly after they were all dining together. Arya was seated next to Waldron. He said very little to her, beyond the preliminary polite inquiries about the journey from Winterfell. She had no appetite but, mindful of Lord Frey's watchful eye on her, tried to eat appropriately. Conducting herself like a lady was coming back to her, slowly, though it was not enjoyable—it would never be enjoyable.

Walder, on his son's other side, leaned past him to gesture at Arya. "Your grandfather Tully sent me a message, not long back. Appears he's ailing further, and wants to see you before his end. He bids you come to Riverrun before the wedding. That suits me; does it suit you?"

She couldn't reply right away. All she could hear for a moment was the voice of Rona, telling her clearly that Gendry had gone south to the Riverlands.

"I suppose if I am summoned by my grandfather's last wish, I ought to go," Arya said at last, trying to sound reluctant, although all she could think was, _a reprieve. _From this dank place, from this unknown groom-to-be. Another quarter of a year, easily.

"So you ought," he said. "Waldron will take you. You'll be properly accompanied, of course."

His son was staring at him, temporarily slack-jawed. Evidently this was the first he had heard of the arrangement. A look from Walder quelled him, and after regaining his composure, he turned towards Arya and said, "I would be happy to be your escort, my lady."

"Thank you," Arya said. "When do we leave?"

Not immediately, as it turned out. The first difficulty was in relaying the news to Robb's men. They were divided in opinion. Some of them thought their duty was clear; to continue on with her to Riverrun, if the Crossing was not to be her final destination after all. Still others—the younger ones with wives and children—just as clearly wanted to return to Winterfell. At last they sent a raven north asking for clarification from Robb. His reply was that as long as Arya felt safe to undertake the journey under the auspices of the Freys alone, his Stark men should return. So she bade them go back to Winterfell, though some still held obvious misgivings.

* * *

It was a week before Arya, Waldron, and a small contingent of five Frey men left the Twins. The atmosphere of this journey was very different from the camaraderie experienced on the way down. Arya had expected no less, yet the first few days were hard to adjust to. She had no liking for the chosen escort, who seemed sly and were always indulging in innuendo and private jokes though whenever she was in earshot they pointedly fell silent. Waldron rode at her side while two were ahead of them to scout—usually out of view—and the other three kept well behind. It gave them the illusion of privacy, which had to have been either Waldron's choice or his father's orders, impossible to tell which. Her companion was tight-lipped, not inclined to converse even when the riding made it possible, which until they joined up with the King's Road, it wasn't. He was not inattentive, however, consulting with her as to when she wished to stop throughout the day.

It was evening after they had made camp, and she was tending to her horse; another thing the men would have done if she had not bothered to do so, but she preferred to. Time went so slowly otherwise.

Over the animal's back she saw that Waldron was approaching with some hot tea, boiled over that evening's firepit. She gave the horse a last pat and dusted her hands on her tunic, accepting the drink. "Thank you."

He inclined his head. They stood for a moment, enveloped in mutual awkwardness and the oncoming dusk.

She asked politely, though she had a good sense already of the answer, "How far are we from the main road now?"

"Another day," he said, considering. Then, as if aware the reply seemed terse, he added, "If we continue at our current pace."

_What's your opinion on our engagement? _she considered asking him. The problem with such a question was he wouldn't answer honestly one way or the other if he had any sense. It didn't matter how either of them felt and they both knew it.

Still, she was tempted. Better to be frank at the start, wasn't it? Didn't they have more of a chance if they were agreed upon where they both stood?

She had neither the desire nor the gift for politics. Arya drank her tea down in one long swallow, though it burned her throat, and remembered belatedly, from his expression, that she should have taken it in delicate sips.

_Seven hells._

She missed Gendry. So much.

_Don't think that. _She quickly thought of all the foul words she knew—plenty in Braavosi and other languages—in rapid succession, in the hopes that this would momentarily give her the toughening she needed to avoid an unexpected and thoroughly embarrassing display of emotion.

The men were laughing about something. Why did their laughter always seem so mean-spirited, compared to Robb's men? When probably the exact same thing would spark the humor of both sets; men always laughed about stupid things.

"I think I should retire," she said. Her throat hurt, and not just from the tea.

"As you please, my lady." He gestured towards her tent, which stood ready. Having her own quarters at night was a luxury she wasn't accustomed to and hadn't expected. Waldron had his as well, and the men camped under the sky. At first the tent had felt too restricting, but after a day of being watched she began to look forward to drawing the door flap and closing the rest of them out. She slept with her sword at the ready, even as she had on the way from Winterfell. She didn't think Waldron was enough of a fool to attempt a midnight visit, but one never knew. Even if they hadn't been strangers, she had already, painfully, learned that lesson about trust, however slight.

In two more days they had reached the King's Road, and Arya had had enough of their convoy. She had not given the idea more than a short consideration, but now she turned, impulsively, in her saddle, and said to Waldron, "Send them home."

"My lady?" he said, baffled.

"Send them back. I want no more of them."

He seemed unable to frame a reply before he said, stammering slightly, "Has any of them...given offense in some way?"

"Yes," she said, and when his face colored in imminent anger, she added, "Though not, perhaps, in the way you mean. None directly. No punishment is warranted. I only want them gone."

"But I cannot. What if we are waylaid? Who will defend us?"

"Well, I assume you can wield a sword in your own defense," she said dryly. His cheekbones deepened in color. "As for me, I can look after myself. The late Lord Stark made sure of my training, and since then I've done nothing but further my skills."

"This is very—"

"Unusual. I understand. _You_ must understand that I'm not the usual noblewoman."

"Even if I did as you wish, my father would send more men after us."

"Of course," she said. "But we'd have a considerable lead by then."

He gathered the reins in his gloved hands, his jaw working. "This is all very well—Lady Arya—but have you given no thought to your own personal—safety? You would lose your chaperones as well as my guards."

"I sleep with my sword," Arya said. "I have nothing to fear from any man."

"If this is truly your wish," he said, his expression unconvinced.

She inclined her head.

Waldron turned his horse and gestured to the grouped men, who rode towards him. They had a quick conference. Arya guided her own animal on to the road, encouraging it into a slow jog forwards. Shortly after she heard his horse, and one of the supply horses which he led behind, cantering after to catch up with her.

She tossed Waldron a reassuring glance. Already she felt more free, unencumbered. The sky was grey and the air chill as if poor weather was on its way, but her mood was light.

* * *

Getting to the Crossroads Inn was the next major achievement of the trip. With only the extra pack horse now, Waldron said they would need to stay at the settlement for a day or two to replenish their supplies. They obtained separate rooms. After washing and changing, Arya met Waldron downstairs in the main area for dinner. Looking around at the bustling tables, she was reminded of having come here with Gendry.

"Is everything all right?" Waldron asked, dutifully.

"Fine," she said. She reached for the ale that for some reason the serving wench had placed closer to him than to her. He was quicker, pouring the drink first into her goblet and then into his.

"To surviving thus far," she said with some irony. They touched goblets together and started in on the hot food that had been brought to them, quail pie and a berry tart.

"I can't imagine my father's very pleased with us," Waldron remarked, not long into the meal.

"It doesn't seem he likes much of anything anyway," Arya said, emboldened by the contents of her cup.

"He likes things to be the way he wants them," Waldron accorded. "That is true."

"Do you usually always do what he wants?"

"Doesn't every son or daughter?"

"I suppose," she said, "eventually."

They ate in silence for a while, surrounded by the noise and chatter of the others around them. The serving girl brought more drink, which Arya intercepted.

"Are you going to be able to finish all of that?" he said, raising an eyebrow.

"Is that a challenge?" she said with a wry twist of her mouth.

"I'm not saying you shouldn't. There's no reason you have to rise early tomorrow. I'll be going out to inquire about our supplies."

"I'll come with you."

He looked startled. "If you like."

"You should know, if you don't by now, that I'd rather be involved with things than not."

"I'm beginning to realize that, yes. Very well. I will knock on your door in the morning. Early."

"I will be up," she said, having another long swallow of ale. _No dreams for me tonight_.

When dawn came she was indeed up, though with a blistering headache from the drink. Arya pulled on her clothes, wove her hair into a serviceable braid and threw her cloak on, concealing her sword.

The streets were busy even now, populated with many who might not yet have gone to bed. Merchants were sweeping in front of their stalls, a bakeshop was putting out its first round loaves, the clang of steel echoed from the smith's. Arya's stomach tightened at the familiar sound. She was keeping up easily with Waldron as he walked along, but something caught her eye and she halted in the middle of the road, not noticing the woman bearing a basket of apples who nearly ran into her.

Across the street, a bull's head helmet—_the_ bull's head helmet, surely—hung from the saddlebags of a horse. The rider, a strapping middle-aged fellow, was just untying the animal from its post and preparing to leave.

Arya grabbed Waldron's arm, not caring how proprietary it seemed. "Buy that for me."

"The...horse?"

"No, st—" She almost called him _stupid,_ swallowed it in time. "The helmet."

Waldron hesitated for three counts. She kept her temper though it seemed like an eternity. The fellow was on his way to leaving.

But then Waldron complied, striding across the street, returning to her moments later. "He says it's not for sale."

"Nonsense," Arya said. "Everything is for sale."

She stepped out, hailing the man when he would have started down the street, and asked him pleasantly about the provenance of the helmet.

"Won it in a game, what's it to you?" he returned.

"I'll pay you well for it."

"How much?"

She named a price without hesitation.

Waldron coughed.

"It's not worth that much," the fellow said, scratching.

"It is to me."

"All right then." He began to unfasten it. Arya took the helmet into her hands with nearly reverential care. _Something of Gendry's_. When she had fled Winterfell, she'd brought the dried thorn-flower he'd given her and carried it around until it had crumbled into purple dust in her handkerchief.

_This will not fade away so easily._

Clearing his throat, Waldron stepped forward and offered the funds. The man peered into the bag of coins and must have decided whether or not they matched Arya's stated amount, they were acceptable. He clucked to his horse, moving on down the street.

"I will pay you back, of course," Arya said, coolly, when she interpreted Waldron's silence as disapproving. "I don't mean for it to be a gift. Especially not at that cost."

"It's quite all right, though I'll admit to being somewhat perplexed."

"This is something that has personal meaning for me." She did not want to elaborate. Tucking the helmet out of sight under her cloak, she followed him about making the arrangements for the goods for the rest of their journey.

_ Maybe we can get it back someday_, she'd said to Gendry. All that time ago. And now it was in her possession. There was something very right about that.

Back in her relatively opulent suite at the inn, however, she set the helmet on the table and then sat on the bed, looking at it, and suddenly became overwhelmed by a growing sensation of panic. _ I can't do this, I can't marry Waldron. I can't_.

Seven bloody hells. The deepest and hottest would be reserved for her, because she was very afraid she was going to break her mother's promise after all.


	12. Chapter 12

_A/N: So A&G have been apart for quite some while now. Time to remedy that..._

* * *

"Come out from your tents!" A harsh call echoed in the not-too-far distance, startling Arya from her semi-slumber. For a moment she lay still, her fingers curling around Needle's hilt in involuntary readiness. The wisest thing to do would be to stay, wait for one or more to try to enter. Dispatch them one at a time, or, at least, as many as she could.

Yet she was compelled. Holding her sword aloft, she flipped back the tent flap covering the entrance.

Though it was dark, they had torches. Five riders were grouped in a semi-circle around the perimeter. She thought she glimpsed their own horses, already captured behind them. She squinted boldly into the firelight.

"Who are you?" she demanded. Bearing no visible banners nor with decorated mounts, they were not immediately identifiable, but they looked too well outfitted to be commonplace brigands, either.

Off to her left she heard a muffled oath and Waldron appeared in his own tent doorway, sword at the ready.

She could take two. She didn't know if he could take three. Possibly they were going to have to find out.

"It's that group," Waldron said, across to Arya. "They call themselves 'the brotherhood without banners'. A fancy name for outlaw scum, if you ask my opinion."

"But no one did ask your opinion," one of them said, genially, nudging his horse closer than the rest. "You two were seen at the Crossroads unloading considerable coin. We were hoping you'd care to make a contribution towards the welfare of the people."

"Thieves," Waldron said contemptuously.

The word gave Arya a guilty thrill. She was a thief. _Had _been a thief.

"Call us what you will," the man in front said. "But if you prefer to avoid trouble you'll comply, and we'll be on our way. No one needs to have any harm come to them." He nodded in Arya's direction. "Especially this young lady."

"I'll fight you for the coin," Arya said impetuously.

"I beg your pardon?" He leaned forward on the horse.

She took a few paces forward, then executed a brief but elegant sword-dance in the air, making Needle sing. "If I win, you go on your way. _Without_ any contribution."

"Spirited," he remarked. "And you know what to do with the toothpick, that's clear. Have you ever thought about being a freedom fighter, lass?"

"She is noble-born," Waldron put in, his voice unsteadily haughty, although Arya couldn't help feeling it was more out of a general sense of outrage than ire over any perceived slight directly to herself. "Hardly the kind to consort with riff-raff like yourselves."

"There are many kinds of people within the brotherhood," the other man replied. His voice was calm, and she heard the last word, suddenly, as if for the first time. But now, it was in Rona's voice she heard it.

_...some sort of brotherhood._

_ Gone south to the Riverlands..._

Gods be good.

The voices were all spinning in her ears.

She heard herself saying, "If I _lose_, I join you myself."

He gave his head an admiring tilt. "Agreed."

"No!" Waldron protested. "Have you gone mad?"

She glanced back at him. She felt suddenly saturated with power. The men were relaxed on their mounts, looking entertained.

"I don't believe so," she said, "but thank you for the concern."

It made someone snicker.

The leader, or at least the one who had consented to fight—she had heard one of the men call him Beric a moment ago—dismounted. He drew his sword, slowly. Unhurried.

They circled each other.

"I must speak with you," Arya said.

"Right now?" He looked both baffled and amused.

"Afterwards."

"As you wish, my lady." He gave a courtly bow, and though she knew Waldron was fuming in the background, seeing it as a calculated insult, for some reason she found it charming. She was unable to help a small smile.

They engaged.

And she realized she couldn't wait.

"I'm looking for someone," she said, side-stepping. "I don't know if he is with your group or not."

"What do you want with this person? A fight, I'm guessing?" He lazily slashed again. He wasn't really trying.

"No, I have something for him, something he will want. If he is with you—will you bring me to him, so I can give it to him directly?" Arya had no desire to hurt her opponent, either. He'd not offended her, and he might know something of Gendry.

"Describe him."

"Black-haired, strong. He is—was—a smith." There were so many words to describe Gendry. She couldn't say them all to this man. Some of them weren't even words, they were just feelings. Just pictures. "He has blue eyes. Blue like a summer with no end." Her sword faltered. They were just standing now. Beric was looking at her curiously. She wasn't sure why they weren't still battling, but it didn't matter. She searched his face, praying she saw recognition there, admission that he knew of whom she spoke.

After another few moments he nodded. "Very well, lass. You win."

"You'll take me to him?" she said in a whisper, feeling very young again suddenly, not so powerful.

"Aye. I'll bring you to Ser Gendry myself. What's to be done with this one?" He jerked his head in Waldron's direction.

Her fiancé, whose existence she had momentarily forgotten about. "Leave him be," she said. "I will myself contribute generously to your cause if you do, though you will have to wait for it. I have no gold with me, and I am already indebted to him."

Beric let out a whistle that rose and fell. "A fine promise. But you're an intriguing creature, I find I almost want to believe you. My lord!" he called to Waldron. "We are going to borrow this lass for a short while. We'll return her unharmed. You're welcome to come along, if you can behave yourself."

"Of course I will come," Waldron said. "I'll not let you take her alone."

"If you wait here for me, I will come back," Arya declared. "You know I can look after myself."

"I know that you tend to do very much as you wish!"

A chuckle ran round the men.

"Then indulge me one last time," she said, though she was very close to forgetting how to wheedle.

"Know that it _will be_ the last time."

The men let out hearty roars in masculine appreciation for the ultimatum. Arya felt a a touch of nausea stir in her stomach. But she looked steadily at Beric, telling him she only needed a few moments to grab her things.

Inside her tent she collected her bag of personal supplies, the bull's head helmet among them. She held the bag to her chest for an instant and was ready. Outside, they had her horse; they truly had been meaning to steal it, if no other payment had been forthcoming, but she didn't care, it didn't matter. Nothing mattered, but where they were going. Who she was going to see.

Unless Beric was lying and she was heading to her death.

Or toward other unpleasantries.

But she knew it wasn't that.

Riding swiftly through the night with the torches bobbing and sputtering was more dream-like than real. The men clearly knew well where they were going, and she kept close to their leader, but it was still a difficult ride, over unfamiliar ground in the dark, with her head and stomach both spinning, begging for everything that had escalated so precipitately to slow down.

Without the sun, tracking the passage of time was impossible, but she estimated they had covered several leagues by the time the horses slowed and she saw the light of campfires.

Arya looked around, trying to get a sense of the size of the group, but it was hard to determine. There were many horses tied up, watched by an alert guard who took their mounts as they arrived. An aggregation of tents were scattered around the wooded clearing, with a rocky cliff at their back. Nothing had the semblance of permanency—whether they had been here for two days or twenty, she couldn't tell in the dark.

Beric elbowed her gently, startling her out of her scrutiny. "Your man's over there."

His tone was mild so she didn't know if his choice of words was innocent or implicatory. She followed his outstretched arm indicating a tent towards the outskirts of the gathering.

She saw _him_, crouched by the small cookfire next to it. She started forward at once.

Beric caught her arm. "Go easy on him, now. He's one of our best smiths. Can't afford to lose such a man."

She stared up at him resentfully. "I have not come here to harm anyone."

"I don't believe you have," he said with a cryptic smile, "but sometimes it's what happens, despite efforts to the contrary." He let go of her.

Halfway to Gendry, Arya stopped, uncertainty turning her stomach even further. He saw her coming—she _knew_ he saw her coming—and yet he turned away, busying himself with something.

_You've left him twice now_, a sneering voice said to her, _did you think he was going to come running?_

Arya cradled the helmet in the sack tight against her chest like a baby, so tight she could hardly breathe. Even if he refused to acknowledge her presence she had come all this way to bring him something, she would do that at least. She would not run now.

She moved closer, aware of a few other men watching. Probably it had been ridiculous to hope for some kind of privacy, though she realized now she had been.

"Gendry," she said, appealing to him to look at her, to recognize her.

"That's_ Ser_ Gendry to you, miss," said one of the men. "Knighted by Dondarrion himself."

Arya didn't know or much care who Dondarrion was. "I have known this man longer than you have," she said, tilting her head coolly, though she knew there was a tremor in her voice.

"A little respect," he said, taking a step in her direction, "in a new place, might be in order, don't you think, girl?"

"Leave her alone," Gendry muttered over his shoulder. He was crouched by the fire, tending something in a pot, his back partly to them.

The men obliged, moving out of earshot and talking to each other as they went, but Arya scarcely noticed. Each moment seemed agonizingly long as the silence between them stretched. The crackle of the fire seemed to mock her with its contrasting friendliness.

"Sit down," Gendry said, "since you're here."

She slowly circled the fire in order to be directly across from him, but instead of sitting, which seemed somehow inappropriate, too informal now, she knelt. Like a supplicant.

More moments passed. She couldn't take her eyes off him, and she hadn't seen him look directly at her yet. He was stirring whatever was cooking. She had not eaten in hours but her stomach still felt sick.

"I came to...I wanted to bring you something."

"I don't need anything from you."

Arya didn't often cry, she had not cried even back in Braavos the day (that day), but now she felt tears threatening, her throat swelling betrayingly. It was too much like her dreams, it couldn't be like this. It wasn't supposed to be like this.

He glanced—almost—at her. Then hooked the pot away from the flames and used a dipper to pour some in a bowl. He handed it to her. Thrust it in her general direction, more properly. "Eat," he said brusquely, and then as if to himself: "you look like a ghost."

She reached out for it. He was careful not to let their hands touch, and moved away again. She sucked back a breath very fast so that the tears wouldn't build any more, and then inhaled the steam. Soup, it was, though far too hot to taste yet.

"Will you get off your knees?" he suddenly demanded, looking around.

"Not until you take this." She set the bowl aside and held out the sack containing his helmet.

He came back to her. Slowly. She had to tip her head back to look up at him. His expression was almost one of distaste. Was it for her? Did he hate her so much? Find her so...unforgivable?

He took the sack, opened it. Turned the helmet out in his hands.

At last he said—"You didn't have to."

"I said I would get it back for you," she said, eagerly.

"And you always do what you say you're going to do, is that right?"

"I try to," Arya said, subdued by his tone, sitting back on her heels.

"No matter what it does to anybody else?"

He _was _angry. But he was talking to her. Still wasn't looking at her—but at least she was hearing his voice. Real. Right there. Not a dream.

"I—" She wanted to say the right things, at least for now; later—if he let there _be_ a later—she could ask her own questions. "I'm sor—"

"_Don't_—" He rounded on her, and she almost dropped the bowl she had picked up again. "Don't say that to me."

She swallowed. Not frightened of him, she could never be frightened of him, no matter how much time and space had interrupted them, but frightened that she couldn't do this. Couldn't make it right. For if sorry wasn't the right thing to say, what was?

There was a long, painful silence, punctuated by the other sounds of the camp; the horses stamping and shifting, the thud of logs added to fires for the night burn (it was very late), the lowering rumble of men's voices discussing plans, disseminating information. She drank the soup, now that it was cool enough. Gendry stood by the fire and poked it into an unreasonably furious pyramid. He still held the helmet in one hand. It somehow looked natural, like an extension of himself. She loved the shape he made, all dark and tall and...him.

"Why'd you come here?"

She said nothing, sensing that confirming in his mind that she more or less followed her desires to wherever they brought her would not be a point in her favor. Besides, she had already answered it, really, with the gift of the helmet.

"What did you expect to happen?"

"I tried not to have expectations," she said softly.

"Wise of you," he said. "Better get one of them to escort you back to wherever you came from."

This dismissal hurt. She pretended he didn't mean it.

"I do have to go back. Perhaps tomorrow...but first I would like to see what it is you, all of you, do here." She felt a touch foolish when she said this, because she was being honest, but he gave her a rather scathing look.

"The men here are men like any other, no better or worse, but this is no place for _my lady_."

_Don't say it like that, like you hate me. Say it with a tease, if you must say it at all, if you must draw that line even deeper..._

She was so tired. Her legs ached from a day's worth of riding, the additional travel on top of that and from kneeling on this hard ground. She climbed to her feet, trying not to let her fatigue show on her face. She wasn't looking for pity. "I have a bedroll in my supplies," she said. "Will anyone care if I sleep under the trees, over there?"

He tossed the stick he'd been using on the fire into the flames. "In the tent."

"What?"

"In the tent. Go."

She wavered. Her legs were shaking and she didn't feel up to any more of this tonight. But he took a couple of steps toward her and, by all the gods, she wasn't going to be brought anywhere. She scurried with dignity towards the shelter.

There was very little space. It accommodated his own bedroll and would fit hers as well, though she would have to be right alongside him.

She didn't care.

She unrolled her mat and blankets and stowed the rest of her things at the foot. He appeared in the doorway, blocking out the light from the fire, and nearly stepped on her.

His silence spoke far more than a curse, as he climbed past her to crawl into his own space.

Arya lay down. Gendry reached across her, sending fire-smoke and iron into her nostrils, which she inhaled with a little sigh of contentment for the familiarity of it, to draw the animal-hide flap over the entrance. For a second he hesitated, still on his elbow, turned towards her.

She couldn't help herself. She put her hand up to touch the side of his face, dimly sketched by the remaining light seeping through the walls.

"Seven hells, Arya—" he said through jaw muscles jumping against her hand.

"I'm not..." She didn't know how to say it. _Not trying to seduce you_. And yet she was cherishing the fact that he'd said her name. That he hadn't moved, hadn't slapped her hand away, which he had had plenty of time to do by now. She was unable to keep from smiling, knowing her own face was in shadow.

After another instant his own hand came up, his fingers closing over hers, bringing her hand forcibly—though gently—away.

But it was enough, it had to be enough for tonight.


	13. Chapter 13

Gendry awoke first.

He was used to waking in the pre-dawn, in the grayness of not-yet-light, but he was not used to having her next to him. This person, this girl—no, this woman—he'd tried to forget and couldn't, not even for a day.

He wasn't about to indulge in touching her, that would be particularly the action of a fool.

_She's not mine, she's never been mine, she isn't ever going to be mine. _Stubbornly he thought it.

But Arya was lying there, only inches away, and he couldn't close his eyes again.

Long hair had escaped her braid and was tangled around her neck. She'd lost the look of smooth-cheeked innocence in her face that made it possible for a child of either sex to pass for the other. Her brows were startlingly dark against the pallor of her skin, with smudges under her closed lids as though someone had rubbed charcoal on fingers and pressed them to her face. Even draped by a blanket, her body seemed to him painfully thin, though the dip of her waist and curve of her hip were further silent proclamations of femininity.

He wanted not even to look at her, but she would be gone again, in a matter of hours, days—who could know when the wolf would decide to flee.

He would not chase.

Noiselessly, he climbed over her, pulling his own blanket on top of her still form as he went.

Outside, the fire was still smoldering. He laid another chunk of wood on it, chafing his hands against the coolness of the morning air, and then went down to the stream to get fresh water.

Lord Beric was walking by when he came back up. They exchanged brief greetings. Beric nodded towards his tent. "She slept with you?"

"_Next_ to me," Gendry said, with a touch of truculence.

"That's what I meant." Brushing off the moment of awkwardness, Beric said, "I knew her father. One of the few truly good men. I think she is very like him."

"I couldn't say." He had of course met the late Lord Stark in the forge back at King's Landing, four years ago. It hadn't been long after that when this girl had come into his life with her poorly-imitated boy's swagger and her gritty, bossy defiance.

"Don't send her away too quickly," Beric said.

Gendry eyed him, a little more sharply than was polite. "It's not up to me whether she stays or not. She does as she likes."

"She won't stay where she's not wanted," was the older man's mild response.

_She won't stay where she _is_ wanted, either,_ he thought.

Beric moved on and Gendry tended to the fire. Breakfast needed making. Rituals were important, certainly out here, but even more for him personally. It was a good way to stay focused. Wake, eat, craft, sleep. Day after day, honest hard work. He was given the chance at leadership, too, within the brotherhood; he was a fair hand with a sword now, he could grasp and appreciate the subtle ways in which revolutions were sometimes fought. There was always something to learn, someone's experience to draw on. But still, breakfast always needed making. For today, breakfast was last night's stew, made so late that it was still warm. He heated it again until it was slowly bubbling in the pot; heat was a purifier.

He was finished eating when Arya finally looked out of the tent door, and, pulling on her boots, came out. Her skin was paler than ever, or perhaps it was just the morning light. She disappeared in the bushes briefly and then rejoined him, hesitating as if she needed to be invited to sit.

"Eat," he told her.

"I'm not—" she began.

_Do it anyway,_ he wanted to yell at her. _Do it because people should when they look like they're going to fade away. Because people do it even if they feel like they can never taste anything again, like every bit of food they put in their mouth is just a piece of coal going into the fire to keep them moving. Because you can hurt and cry and moan all you want but you are still going to have to eat if you want to be alive._

_ And even if you don't._

_ It's just what people do._

Maybe she saw some of that on his face.

He dug around in the pot with the dipper, searching for the bits of vegetable, the choicest morsels of meat to give her.

"Thank you," she said softly.

_If I had a _dog_ that looked as bad as you I would feed it so._

Arya ate.

She looked up eventually. "Can't things be like they were? Just...today?"

"No," he said. He wasn't trying to be cruel. He just didn't think they could. He knew _he_ couldn't.

"I went to the winter town," she said. "The day after I got back home. Almost three months ago."

"You met her, then."

Arya was silent until Gendry looked at her and then she nodded.

"The child's not mine."

"So she told me."

"You didn't believe her?"

Arya tugged at the hair escaping her braid. "I don't know."

"You believe _me_?"

"Yes."

"Why?" he fired at her.

"I don't think you'd lie to me. You might hate me but—" her voice cracked a little.

"She was already carrying when I met her," Gendry said. He didn't feel like elaborating on how he and Rona had come to be. It wasn't anything particularly complicated, but what was the point in being forthcoming just because Arya felt entitled to the information. When she'd volunteered nothing about herself into the bargain.

When he knew _nothing_ about what the last two years had been like for her.

And, in a way, he didn't want to know, either.

Not unless they had been complete perfection, the happiest two years of her life so far. And the wary look in her eyes, the translucency of her skin, her rangy bones, those all told him that hadn't been the case.

He _didn't_ want to know what had made that look come to her eye. And when he did know, when he found out, he would hate himself for not having been able to keep it from her.

Which didn't make sense at all.

Arya cleared her throat. "This doesn't look like a permanent camp. Will all of you be here much longer?"

He shrugged. "It's up to Dondarrion. A week, maybe a fortnight."

She was quiet.

He looked away, up at the sullen clouds threatening rain. "What about you?" he asked, still not looking at her.

"I am on my way to Riverrun. My grandfather wished to see me."

"Long way from Winterfell just for a visit."

"I came from the Twins, more recently." Her voice was hesitant, indefinable.

"And what were you doing there?" He cursed himself for asking. Wasn't he playing her game? But better to get it out. It was some kind of extended torture; might as well ask for the dagger as endure it.

"Meeting the man I was promised to." She spoke so rapidly her words fell over each other. "Waldron Frey. I would have gone unescorted to Riverrun, if I could; they wouldn't countenance it."

"Fine sort of family if they did. Where is your _intended_ now?"

_Dead_, he rather hoped she would say. The gods weren't that kind, of course.

"I made him wait," she said, "back there. We were camped and...Lord?..Beric sought us out. He said we were seen at the Crossroads, so we were followed. I assume."

"You _made_ him wait? What kind of man is he?"

Though the question was rhetorical he saw her stiffen. "I don't know myself, exactly, but he has been very accommodating thus far. And has behaved well."

"Sounds like a camp dog," Gendry remarked, not caring if she was offended.

She was, a little. "He's of noble blood."

"Right, well, I know how much that means to you." It wasn't his nature to be sardonic but the situation was drawing it from him nevertheless.

"You know it _doesn't,_" she said. "I only meant he's been courteous—I don't want to talk about him."

Gendry was in full accord there. He hooked the pot off the heat and put it on the ground, where one of Beric's hounds who had been lurking began to clean up the leavings.

"I made something for you," he told her abruptly. "You might as well have it."

Arya waited with some apprehension while he rummaged to the bottom of a sack in his tent. Retrieving the bracelet, he opened his palm and held it forth, without much flourish; though to look at it now, he remembered just how much work had gone into its making.

Arya hesitated, her eyes going from the adornment to his face and back again. He'd begun the piece while still up at Winterfell, a month or so after her disappearance. He hadn't been sure, at the time, what it was he was making, what meaning it even had. He only knew that he worked on it when he was thinking of her, and so he had often been angry, yet still taking infinite care over its details. It had taken him a long time to finish completely and when he had, somehow, he didn't want to look at the thing. He had wrapped it up and kept it out of sight.

"It's beautiful," she said uncertainly.

"Take it." He moved his hand closer. "Take it for the trouble you went to in getting my helmet back."

Her eyes widened and glistened. "No...! That was yours, I only returned it to you."

"As this is yours."

"Not if it's...some kind of payment." She said the word like it tasted bad, like spoiled fruit.

"_Take_ it."

Arya shook her head fractionally. "I don't know what it means," she said, low, almost pleading.

"It doesn't mean anything," he said, and suddenly his own throat hurt, as if some kind of divine punishment for a not-truth.

The look on her face was like he had slapped her. He nearly took it back, but couldn't—some things, once spoken, had to be lived with, no matter the misunderstanding they caused. He had to get the bracelet away from him, it wasn't his, it was almost burning his fire-hardened skin, and so he turned it over into her hand and pressed her fingers around the cool circles of metal.

She stared down at her hand and he wondered if it could somehow be burning her, too.

Then the exchange was done, and someone was calling him, anyway, and he strode away gladly to answer, leaving her standing there in front of his tent.

* * *

Arya had an early sense that the brotherhood was a group in which she could feel at home, if they would give her a chance. It appealed to her, the concept of men from different walks of life, with differing skills and pasts, yet all committed to ensuring that people could live their lives free of tyranny if they chose, no need to swear allegiance to a particular house or king. She sensed it could provide the freedom of her nameless life in Braavos yet also the security of her existence as a daughter of Winterfell.

But when Gendry had given her the bracelet and walked off, she felt completely deserted. Lord Beric had spotted her in those aimless moments, and beckoned her over. There was something about him that she recognized as familiar, worthy of listening to and learning from. When he confirmed he had known her father it was like an echo from the past, however faint. She clung to that link and shadowed him on that first day. He didn't seem to mind. He wasn't suspicious of her connection with the Freys (although it was apparent that house had no friends among the brotherhood) and talked at length with Arya, answering many of her questions. She was grateful because he was clearly trying to distract her from the incident with Gendry although he never touched directly on the subject of why she was still here.

She broached it herself, eventually, by early evening. Waldron couldn't be left to wait forever and she needed some form of guidance now.

They were sitting in his tent which, while considerably larger than the others, was by no means ostentatious. His furniture was simple and practical: a desk with maps, several chairs scattered about. His hounds, one of which Arya had noticed eating the last of the breakfast stew, were curled up on rugs at their feet. Beric's squire had brought them dinner, and afterward, cups of tea. Arya sipped at hers, hoping it would help her to relax. She was not especially tired, but her nerves were on edge. The bracelet, at which she hadn't looked closely yet, sat heavily in one of her pockets. _It doesn't mean anything_. She knew she wouldn't be able to bring herself to throw it away and yet she wanted to. Tears pricked at her eyes. She stared upwards for a moment, blinking.

Beric had been pointing something out on one of his maps to her, but he paused.

"Tea was too hot," she managed.

"That is nothing to do with tea."

"I don't know what to do. Everything is so—"

There was no one word for what everything was, really. _Wrong. _Perhaps. That came close.

"Tell me," he said, "we'll see if we can't untangle it."

The kindness in his voice wreaked further havoc on her emotions; if he'd dismissed her as a silly girl, it might have strengthened her, but the fatherly indulgence was devastating.

"I have to go back, only I can't leave him like this again, he hasn't forgiven me for the last time. He will hardly _look_ at me, and when he talks—" She broke off. "You must find this completely trivial."

"Nothing is trivial where it concerns one of my men, and the daughter of an old friend." He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. "Know that you are welcome within the brotherhood, but if there are things you must attend to, then hiding here won't help."

"I know," Arya said, swallowing.

"I'll ask him to go back with you. Him, and one of the men who knows the way."

"He'll refuse."

"He may," Beric agreed. "I'll see if he can be convinced or not." He called for his squire and bade him send for Gendry. Arya straightened in her chair and scrubbed her face with the heel of her hand.

Gendry appeared shortly thereafter. At least he didn't register downright disapproval upon seeing her; that would have been even more humiliating.

"I want you and Elgar to escort her back to where she was found," Beric was saying. "It's a half-day's ride. You can leave tomorrow."

"I'm needed here."

"We can manage without you for a time."

"I don't see why it should be me."

"You know her," Beric said. "I charge you with her care and keeping until you deliver her into the hands of one you trust."

Arya blinked at him, surprised by the casually uttered yet solemn request. Gendry looked equally taken aback. "I'm a free man. M'lord."

"It's a favor I ask," Beric said with a smile. "Do you accept?"

Gendry inclined his head. Somewhat stiffly.

"Good. Tomorrow, then." Beric pretended to be interested in his maps, or maybe he really was and had grown tired of them. Arya stood up self-consciously. The hounds followed them out.

Out of earshot, trotting to keep up with Gendry, she said, "That wasn't my idea."

He sighed through his nose. "It's fine."

"No, it's not, not if you don't want to, and I can see you don't."

"I said it's all right. I'll take you back to your—" (she wondered if he was trying to torture her by thinking of new words for fiancé) "_commitment_."

"You know you can just say his name," she said, feeling less emotional now and more mildly irritated.

"I don't want to say his name." He ducked under ropes strung between trees and circled piles of firewood, taking the shortcut towards his tent. Once there he looked at the fire—which was burning, but had nothing cooking over it—and demanded, "Did you eat?"

"You know," Arya said, and she didn't care now, she was just going to say it and have it said. "I did live across the sea for two years _on my own_ and most of the time I managed to feed myself every day, so your asking me every other moment if I've eaten or not is becoming a little tiresome. But yes. I did. Thank you for your concern."

She matched his stare aggressively. He looked away first.

"I'm going to bed," he said, even though the sun had not yet sunk beneath the cover of trees.

After he'd gone within the tent, she sat in front of the fire and found a stick to nudge the embers back into flame. The evening light changed to twilight and then to deeper dusk. Recalling the bracelet, Arya took it out to look at. She held it between her fingers for a while; six metal discs, which gleamed and shone from polishing, each bearing a pattern of tiny circles on the outside, with loops on the indented inner side connected by butter-soft leather cord. It was intricate work, performed in miniature, not something she'd known he was capable of. She slipped the bracelet on over her left arm, where it fit just beneath her hand, against her wristbone.

She didn't accept that it didn't mean anything. Or, at least, that it hadn't meant something, once.

_Now it might be too late_.

But she didn't accept that, either. She could be every bit as stubborn as a stupid, bull-headed man.

Her thoughts turned to Waldron. Truly, she didn't know what to do with that complication. That commitment, as Gendry had most lately referred to him. Though Waldron _had_ been accommodating, she had not missed the warning he'd given her that from now on things would be different. If she were to marry him he would expect full compliance at all times, in all ways.

Her father's prediction came to her mind again. _You will marry a high lord and rule his castle, and your sons shall be knights and princes and lords_.

She traced the pattern on the discs of the bracelet for a moment and then pulled the long sleeve of her tunic down, covering it. She entered the tent and lay down on her pallet. Gendry's back was to her and if he wasn't sleeping, she couldn't tell.

The bracelet felt cool pressed against her skin.


	14. Chapter 14

At daybreak Arya and Gendry left the camp, guided by Elgar, one of the men who had been in the original group that had ambushed Arya and Waldron. Elgar kept a tactful distance ahead of them, perhaps having been advised to do so, but it little mattered since they weren't holding any conversations. The landscape did not allow for it, even if the atmosphere between them had. At least it was easier travelling this route now she could see where they were going. By the time the sun was directly overhead, their scout was slowing his horse and Arya recognized the terrain that she and Waldron had chosen for their camp spot.

Yet the tents were gone.

Her first instinct was to feel incredulity he hadn't waited for her. Surely he couldn't have considered the less than two days an excessive amount of time. She had told him she would be back. Why had he not waited? Or had someone set upon him, a solo traveller, this close to the river road?

She eased a leg across her mount's back and slid off, gathering the leads and walking about the small clearing. Scattered black ashes from the fire remained, but no other trace of their having been there.

Gendry said what they were thinking. "What now?"

"I propose lunch," Elgar said, dismounting.

They had brought bread, and dried meat, and water to drink. Arya had no appetite, and for once Gendry didn't comment on it. The three of them sat without speaking on the forest floor while the horses rested and cropped at the foliage.

Arya stared up at the sky, trying to determine the most logical course of action. She had no doubt both men would want to return to the camp at once since, personal desires aside, they lacked the supplies for a lengthy journey. She didn't know what _she_ wanted to do, but going back to the brotherhood would not answer the question of what had happened to Waldron. Either she must look for him, doubling back along the river road towards the Crossroads, or continue on to Riverrun, her original destination.

With or without accompaniment.

The silence stretched. As soon as one of them spoke they were going to have to make a decision. No one wanted to be the one to initiate the discussion.

At last Elgar said, "It's afternoon."

"We should go back," was Gendry's contribution.

"I need to find him." Arya made a groove in the dirt with her feet. "I need to try, anyway."

"Dondarrion said—" Gendry began.

"I remember what he said, I was there. He said you should bring me to somebody you trusted. Is that person here?"

There was silence and then Elgar said, diplomatically, "I'll return to the camp. We have excellent trackers; someone can be sent with supplies to catch up with you. If you're sure you want to go on."

"I'm sure." She didn't look at Gendry.

Elgar separated his horse from the others, bade them a quick farewell and departed.

"Which way do you want to go?" Gendry asked with flat resignation, after the beat of the horse hooves had faded in the distance.

Arya wanted to be decisive but the truth was, she really didn't know. Had no idea. _East to the Crossroads, west to Riverrun? Round and round in endless circles, is what it feels like. __You choose_, she almost told him.

"West," she said.

He stood up, heading for the horses.

There was still plenty of daylight left, time enough to ride a long way before sundown.

Arya knew it was just nerves, that she would have felt so no matter which direction they were going in, but she was already questioning whether it had been the right choice.

* * *

It was necessary, as always, to hunt down a more secluded spot to sleep for the night when in such close proximity to a main road. This time, Arya was acutely aware that since they lacked tents, privacy would be nonexistent, and that the last time she had slept under the sky with Gendry she hadn't yet been of an age to think anything of it. True, too, that the last two nights they had been side by side, but that had been in the camp of the brotherhood where the sounds and smells of so many others nearby had not allowed for the illusion of isolation.

Here, in a small green glade peppered with whispering trees, with the cool darkness settling in like a dusky blanket, it was far too easy to imagine they were the only two in all of the Riverlands. The trouble was, of course, that the physical propinquity made the emotional distance between them all the more difficult to endure.

That was from her perspective, of course. Maybe Gendry didn't notice the tenor of the atmosphere, or didn't care if he did. His movements were always economical, practical, those of a man accustomed to working in a limited space and producing the best possible work despite such restrictions. She studied him as he set up the fire, marveling even though she'd seen before that he could still make one faster than anyone she knew.

She turned the bracelet under her sleeve. She didn't think he would notice but he said abruptly, "You're wearing that?"

"You gave it to me," she said. "I suppose I can wear it if I like."

Gendry knelt, across from her on the other side of the fire circle, and breathed life into the skeleton framework of twigs and branches, sending smoke curling up from the strips of tinder. He crouched, brushing off his palms. He had a streak of soot along his jaw and she had a strong impulse to reach over and wipe it off for him. He locked eyes with her.

_I'm sorry I left,_ she tried to say, but couldn't. Perhaps he would be able to read it in her eyes.

But he looked away soon, too soon, and the brief connection was broken.

Dark came quickly then, swallowing even the shadows, until there was nothing but them, and the fire, and the occasional sounds from the horses, tied up beyond the trees.

"Sleep," he said.

"Don't tell me what to do."

"When did you ever listen anyway?"

"Maybe I'll listen when you can think of something better to tell me than 'sleep', and 'eat', and 'sit', like I'm one of the dogs!"

"Sorry to give offense, m'lady."

"Don't try to make it about that, it was never about that with us." She took a breath trying to keep herself calm. "I just want to know what you're thinking. If you're angry at me, then say so. I'm not afraid of your anger."

"You've never seen me angry," he said.

"Maybe I want to."

"I don't want to play." He tossed a twig into the fire. "Not with you."

"What does that mean?"

"I can't let you get to me the way that you do."

She wasn't sure what to reply to that. Or what to think. Perhaps she was trying too hard. This was only their first of many nights. A wound couldn't heal that fast; she was being unrealistic to think that it could.

She just needed things to be right with them, so much. There was no way she could face Waldron or her future with him if things weren't some kind of right with her and Gendry.

But she couldn't tell that to him, either. He would hate that thought and she didn't blame him, it was deceitful in some way. How could you wed one man and always have another first in your mind?

Arya dug out her bedroll and smoothed it across the ground. She lay down with outward docility, though her mind was still busy, unlikely to settle or allow rest anytime soon.

He stayed where he was on the other side of the fire.

Sleep always came eventually no matter how sure one was that it wouldn't—pain, excitement, mental turmoil—but neither of them got much of it that first night.

She stirred from cold when the sky was still blue-black but the fire had subsided to glowing coals. She crawled out of her bedroll more out of instinct than conscious thought, making her way around the fire to him. He let out a sleepy grunt as if too tired to argue and raised his arm a little, allowing her to snuggle under it against his chest. He was a solid wall of warmth and utter comfort. She closed her eyes in contentment and listened to their mutual breathing.

Morning followed far too soon after this interlude and was hateful by comparison. Arya was rolled abruptly awake when Gendry's arm disappeared from under her neck. "Ah—" The sunlight was sharp in her eyes. Her stomach was empty, and her throat dry. "Water," she muttered pitifully, feeling around for it.

He was sitting up and handed her the waterbag. Its contents were still night-cool and delicious.

"What are you doing over here," he muttered.

"I was sleeping." She rubbed her neck which ached from the sudden removal of his arm. "I was cold," she added, unrepentantly.

"That's what the fire was for."

"It was dead."

"It was not, you were just too lazy to get it going again."

She shrugged, tacitly allowing by her silence for that to be true.

"Want to eat, or be on our way?"

"Ride." Arya got to her feet.

* * *

Gendry noticed some patterns starting to form over the next few days of travel.

Arya rarely had any kind of breakfast when they awoke; often she didn't eat anything until midday or whenever their first break for the horses occurred. He had given up suggesting or ordering that she do otherwise, though it was hard to see her looking undernourished. He wasn't sure whether she honestly had no appetite or if this was her way of punishing herself (or him) for something. If the latter, he wished she'd choose another form of penance. Perhaps when you weren't low-born you didn't really understand the importance of food. Denying yourself nourishment was a luxury _he_ couldn't understand.

During the day, they covered a lot of ground. She showed no inclination to linger or delay. They didn't have conversations, beyond a casual exchange here and there, when they did stop.

There was nothing to talk about.

There was far too much to talk about.

When nights came, he could not keep her away from him. She would settle by the fire, if he made one, and stay there while he picked his own sleeping spot, near or far, it didn't seem to matter—by morning, she always ended up next to him, more often than not in his arms. He was cursed if he knew how she was able to get him to put his arms around her without waking him, but she managed to do it every time. She was as quiet and deft as a thief, stealing his personal space, and showing no embarrassment or discomfiture when they woke. After the first few nights of this he began resignedly to accept that it was going to happen whether he liked it or not.

It wasn't that he didn't like it, either. He was a man, and she was a woman, not just any woman, someone he didn't want to allow himself to want because he knew, he'd known before now, that she was not his to have. He thought he'd accepted that. And then she had gone. And he had had two years to try and make some sense of it, try and reconcile himself to the idea that perhaps it was better this way. That maybe she was better off being free and doing what she wanted, not stuck in a tower room waiting for her lord husband's visits.

The only problem, the only thing he'd never been able to reconcile was that he'd never known if she was safe. If she was even still alive. Not knowing, he couldn't put her behind him.

And now she was here—safe, but with some demons hiding in her eyes—and going to marry the cursed Frey anyway.

And now she was here, against his chest, a place he could keep her safe (though he didn't know what, if anything, he could do about the demons) and still engaged to be some other man's wife.

Every morning that came he couldn't countenance it, couldn't lie there and be awake and just hold her. It was too much and not enough. Every morning as soon as he surfaced from sleep he untangled her arms from around him and pushed her (gently, if he had the self-control) away.

He didn't know how many more times he had it in him to push her away.

One such night he was still awake when she crept over. There was a bit of moonlight. She hesitated; he could see her thinking about it. There was something odd about the way she was doing it. Like she was practicing a skill, trying not to forget how to do something.

Arya lay down beside him, ghost-silent, her hair brushing his chest. She was just settling and breathing out when he leaned over her and captured her arm, trapping her flat underneath him.

She went very still, but in the moonlight she gazed up at him with calm acceptance.

"How'd you get to be so good at this?" he asked.

"Someone taught me," she said. "How to move, how to steal. I could steal anything from you."

He grunted grimly. "Someone?"

"Nobody," she said. "Nothing."

"Really?"

"No."

Her throat moved as she swallowed.

"I couldn't learn for free," she said, trying to sound flippant, but he felt his stomach knot from the catch in her voice. "I only paid once."

He didn't know any words to say to her, though his head filled with all manner of incoherent expletives. He took his hand off her wrist, because it didn't feel right now to be holding her down, not when she'd just said that, and hesitated, because he didn't know if she wanted to be touched at all. Maybe only on her terms, and who could blame her for that.

She shifted, and he instantly moved back, out of her way so she could sit up. She was quiet for a bit. He didn't speak either, just watched the way the night breeze was dancing in her hair.

"I didn't mean to tell you that. Not so you'd feel sorry for me. I don't want that." Her voice was soft but definite. She looked back over her shoulder at him. He nodded because he still didn't trust himself to speak with any clarity.

"I didn't want it to be a secret. I don't want to have anything hidden from you."

"Arya," he said finally, and only managed to get the words out by extreme force of will, "Shouldn't—you...be saying these things—to your future husband?"

Her gaze was simple, unashamed. "I'm saying it to you. Because you're the only person—" Here she stopped.

The only person who what? he wanted to shout. He felt like she had said something like that to him before. Was it so unreasonable to want to know what, if anything, he still was to her? Was this exasperating creature never going to tell him? Worse, was she going to tell him and then still give herself to someone else?

There was another space of silence between them. Arya said, "You don't think of me differently now, do you?"

"Because of what _happened_?"

"It's something Robb said. That if I wasn't...that they might not find me suitable."

He pressed fingers to his forehead in an attempt to momentarily drive out the tension. "If anyone judged you for that," he said, "damn them."

She threw him a half-smile.

He couldn't help himself, he held out an arm then and she slid over back beside him, snuggling familiarly into his chest. For a long second he pressed his face against the side of her head in what was, almost, a kiss.

* * *

Though the next morning, for the first time, Gendry did not push her away but let her lie in his embrace until she decided she wanted to get up, Arya still couldn't consider it a victory. Now she worried he was only taking pity on her, that his feelings of antipathy hadn't changed, but because he knew what had happened to her, he felt sorry for her. And that wasn't what she wanted. In fact, she considered that a step backward.

Pity was not love, and she didn't want it from anyone, least of all from him.

It made her feel more awkward than before and she tried to behave normally, or at least as normally as she had been over the past few days.

The tracker from the brotherhood camp caught up with them during their midday break. It wasn't Elgar, but one of the others. He and Gendry talked for a short while, during which time Arya took all three horses to one of the closest creeks for water. When she returned the man was preparing to be on his way again and wishing them an uneventful journey to Riverrun. He left them with food and other supplies, took their thanks, and then they were alone again.


	15. Chapter 15

_A/N: Though I don't want to give too much away, please be aware that this chapter is M-rated._

* * *

"Rain's coming," Gendry said, unnecessarily; from the massing clouds that had been gathering since the beginning of the day it was apparent that they were riding in the direction of foul weather. A coppery smell permeated the air and the skies were saturated with dark color. "We ought to stop."

It was only late afternoon, but Arya had to agree with him. The wind was gathering speed and the horses were shying more often as debris scattered across their path or small branches blew unexpectedly in their direction. Yet there wasn't much about in the way of obvious shelter. The ground was flat here, with the river roaring nearby. They urged their horses on, searching for a more protected spot, but by the time the rain was beginning to spatter, nothing ideal had presented itself, and they were obliged to stop and simply tie their mounts near to the base of a large tree, then scuttle under and stay by its roots. Arya peered past the blowing leaves. The horses were stamping and whooshing nervously, but they were all protected enough, though not hidden from view should anyone else happen by in the storm.

She hugged herself. She was damp, and there would be no fire tonight, not even Gendry could construct one in this sodden environment. He was unpacking their bedrolls and handing her a blanket. She wrapped it around her shoulders and leaned back against the tree. Even with the protection of leaves and branches above, the wind was whipping the rain so it fell in steady rivulets down the wooden channels of bark.

Gendry was murmuring to the horses, trying to quieten them, without much avail; they were made nervous by the hissing of the wind, and as soon as one settled, the other alarmed it again. Finally he left them and came and hunkered down beside Arya. They sat in quiet and watched the rain for a while, listening to the rolls of the thunder.

Arya began to twist her damp hair back into the braid from which it was constantly trying to escape. Gendry reached past her and produced a curled leaf that had been trapped in the tangles. It was a simple enough gesture, instinctive more than purposeful perhaps, but his hand lingered by her cheek, and his own face suddenly seemed very intent.

Not at all pitying. She wondered a little nervously if she shouldn't bring up last night's conversation again. She didn't especially _want_ to talk about any of it, but she also didn't want him laboring under any misapprehensions, either.

One of the horses neighed, startling both of them. Gendry dropped his hand and looked away, out at the rain. "Want to eat something?"

She mumbled her accord. Bread and dried meat were prosaic, but filling. A headache was lurking in her temples, no doubt brought on by the shift in weather, and she would have given much to be able to wash down the food with some ale or wine. Of course there was only water. Everything was water. It was pooling near her feet, running down her back. She shifted and burrowed deeper into the blanket.

"Cold?" he asked.

"No, just wet. I'm all right."

"I don't want you to get sick."

"I'm stronger than you think." Arya spoke sturdily.

"To me you look like you want looking after."

"I do not want looking after."

"I mean you look like you need it. Like you're tired. You've been doing nothing but ride from one end of this country and back again."

"I was at Winterfell for a month," she argued without heat. "And more than likely I will stay at Riverrun that long."

"And after that?"

"I'm trying not to think that far ahead," she admitted.

"That's the trouble with you."

"Well, I'm sorry if you don't approve of my decisions, but since I'm the one who has to abide by them, I'll thank you to let me live a month at a time. A _day_ at a time, if I have to."

"You do what you want," he said. "Don't have to check with me first."

This withdrawal was both unexpected and irritating. For a moment she didn't know how to react. Every time she was close to feeling like they might be honestly communicating again, it was somehow as if they were speaking different languages.

It defeated her. The pressure in her skull was building. The damp blanket was suddenly rather suffocating. She peeled it off and stood up.

"I need some air," she said, faintly, aware of how nonsensical it sounded, and moved out from under the tree into the driving rain, ignoring his exasperated exclamation.

The road stretched flat and muddy into the west, as far ahead as she could see through the wet gray. She took deep breaths of the moisture, closed her eyes for a moment and let the rain fall off her lids.

"Seven _hells_."

He was behind her, the rain plastering his own hair in dark lines across his forehead, delineating the muscles in his arms and chest, making him look like some kind of angry drowned fire-god.

"All men are made of water," she quoted. "Do you know this? If you pierce them, the water leaks out, and they die."

"Stop talking nonsense. All men are made of _blood_. Get out of the rain."

"We're already wet."

"And it's getting dark."

"I don't want you to be sorry for me."

"What?" He scrubbed a hand over his face.

"I don't want you to feel sorry because of anything that happened!" she shouted into the rain.

"All right, I don't. I don't, I swear. Come back under the tree with me." He reached out and took her wrist, his fingers closing around the bracelet. They both looked down at it as the rain beat down on their arms, stinging Arya's flesh almost pleasantly.

"What does it mean?" She didn't quite say the words, only mouthed them, barely audibly.

"I thought it was goodbye. I never thought I would see you again to give it to you."

"You never thought you would see me again?" she repeated wonderingly. "I always knew I would come back."

"Then you knew more than I did. Damn you, Arya Stark!" His eyelashes were spiky anyway, there could have been tears or not, impossible to know in the rain. Her head ached and now her stomach ached too in the way it did when you suddenly really _knew_ how you had hurt someone, you felt it turning back on yourself, the hurt that hurt twice, like a sword, once in the giving, once in the taking.

If there was a way to apologize for that, Arya didn't know what it was. Perhaps it didn't involve words.

She didn't know, either, if this was right or not, but she inched closer to him then, put her hands on his shoulders and tilted her face towards his.

It was only them, in the rain, there was no one else in the world. With her eyes and her mouth she asked him for a kiss.

He closed his eyes for an instant, looking up, away from her, as if in silent invocation, then he took her wet face in his wet hands and kissed her. Soft, hungry, upset all at once. But perfectly fulfilling. She wrapped her arms tighter around him, trying to get closer, deeper. Because it was _right_. Yet he was suddenly peeling her arms away, denying her. "No."

She let out an angry sound of wordless argument.

"Gods, Arya, d'you think I don't _want_ to?" he almost pleaded, keeping her at arms' length, though this was only encouraging to her.

"Then—"

He grabbed her hand again and tugged her back towards the shelter of the tree.

Underneath its branches again she decided to compromise. "Just kiss me."

"Just kiss you? Am I a septon?"

They were both on their knees.

"If you don't want all of me," she said, trying to catch her breath.

He groaned. "I can't have_ any _of you."

"I'm my own to give," she said, lying down on her bedroll, half aware of the way her hip curved persuasively upwards, the way her soaked clothing outlined the rest of her. She reached out and pulled him down beside her, placing his hand on her leg. His self-control seemed to weaken then. She was shivering with need and cold at the same time, but he was so warm, once he stripped off his clothes, she couldn't get enough of the feel of him against her, like iron fire. She wriggled out of her own clothing, kicking it aside, but whether she was shy or chilled she couldn't let him look at her just then, pulling him close, guiding his hands over her body where she wanted them. His hands were rough, work-hard, but they felt so good on her skin while they kissed long, avidly, savoring each other's mouth.

She whispered, breaking away for a second, "I need you inside me to be warm again," and it felt brazen, salacious to say, but she also meant it in a metaphysical way, though he was likely to be far too distracted to understand or appreciate the subtleties of the comment. He responded by rising over her on his elbows so their bodies were aligned, and he was ready, she could feel him against her, but even then he hesitated, his eyes so blue searching hers in the dusky evening rain air. The pit of her stomach where her hipbones converged ached with an anticipatory moment of delicious deprivation.

He touched his forehead against hers, and then joined with her completely, and the intimacy was overwhelming but she didn't have the least bit of uncertainty about it, it was precious and only awkward for her body, a little, not for her feelings at all. She dug her fingers into the muscles of his shoulders as they moved, as he moved in her. She thought of nothing but them, of how alive she felt, how warm, isolated together by the thunder and rain and leaves, his lips on her neck, on her ear.

At the moment of his desperate release she felt an exhilarating jolt of power, and when he relaxed on her in silent temporary enervation, she still clutched him against her, not wanting him to move away.

His jaw was scratchy against her neck. She wiggled, and he shifted, lifting his head to look at her. "Arya..." he said, dragging her name out as if in some kind of disbelief.

"Didn't you like it?"

"Couldn't you tell how much I liked it?"

She smiled, made shy by that despite her boldness.

"I still shouldn't've—"

"We."

"_We _shouldn't have—"

She stretched up to kiss him. His mouth was soft, reluctantly responding. "Yes we should," she said, feeling around for the blanket because there was rain still dripping on them through the trees and now that they were not moving it was noticeable. He slid sideways off her, and she pulled the blanket over both of them and snuggled back into his arms, tangling her legs familiarly between his. She supposed they would have to get dressed in their damp clothes again before night truly fell, but for now the sensation of having no barriers at all between them was still too new and intoxicating to give up right away.

* * *

Despite the physical fulfilment achieved and the accompanying languor in his limbs, all Gendry could think was how was he going to be able to leave her at Riverrun now. It was all well and good that they had enjoyed the coupling so much (at least he hoped she had as much as he) and of course there was no doubt they still had time to indulge in further such pleasurable diversions, but once they reached her mother's ancestral home, that recreation would necessarily come to an end. Ser Gendry of the brotherhood he might be this time, they wouldn't exactly banish him to the outer buildings, but he was still only Arya's escort and there was no reason for him to hang about once he'd done as Beric had asked.

Then, also, there was still the problem of the Frey engagement, presuming her fiancé was still alive, and even if he were not, there were plenty more to take his place.

It made his head ache, thinking of how much more complicated they'd just made things. It wasn't that he hadn't known, or hadn't cared; he wasn't so selfish as that. But there was only so much willpower a man could exert. When she'd had that look, a mixture of confident trust and hungry longing, on her face, at the same time she was showing him where she wanted his hands on her body—he couldn't imagine being able to refuse.

And now she was lying warm and smooth in his arms, on the verge of sleep, her breath soft and slow, wearing only that cursed bracelet he'd made, and he just didn't want this to be all that there was, he didn't want this to be all he could give her.

He was more than a little afraid that it _was_ all he could give her. A few moments of stolen pleasure under a tree. What else was he good for? When you were considering the world of the high-born? She would be angry if he voiced such views, but it was how it was. Practicality forced him to entertain such notions, not self-pity.

Arya murmured something, her lips against his collarbone, the vibration sending tremors through him again. Her hair was damp and smoky, tickling his skin; he ran his fingers through it and told her to sleep. The rain was finally starting to slacken overhead. The thunderstorm must be passing.

* * *

Leaving their warm nest of bodies was hard in the morning, _on such a sweet, right morning_, but Arya got dressed, quietly enough so as not to wake Gendry or startle the horses, and slipped down to the water to wash. The river, muddy and racked with debris from yesterday's rains, was not as refreshing as she might have wished, and it was cold besides, so she hastily finished her ablutions and climbed back into her clothes. While sitting on the bank she wrung out her hair and contemplated the happenings of last night. She suspected Gendry would be regretting their love-making and was prepared for him to be brusque with her today as a result. She didn't care, it had been worth it to know that he didn't hate her any more, and she was fairly certain there hadn't been pity involved, either.

_He's mine again...and I'm his, even if he still doesn't feel like he can have me_.

Arya hastened back to the camp spot.

He was getting dressed as she approached. She smiled and lingered, admiring his bare chest and arms. "Good morning."

"Morning." He seemed self-conscious. But when she moved past him intending to gather up their blankets, he snagged her around the waist and pulled her into his arms, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. Now she was the one faintly embarrassed since she'd been prepared for him to be distant. It was turning out to be somewhat perplexing, after all, with this new element added, to figure out how to relate to each other.

"Should have woken me up," he said.

"I took my sword with me," she answered, assuming he meant he didn't think it safe for her to be alone.

"Right," he said, letting her go. "Sometimes I forget you can probably look after yourself better than I can."

Now she felt guilty, even though he had tried to say it lightly. She cast about for some way to change the subject. "I'm hungry," she said, although she wasn't. "Let's eat."

His eyebrows were doubtful but he did not contradict. They had some bread, and fed and watered the horses before packing up. The sky had cleared overnight and though the ground would still be sodden, it looked to be a good day for riding.

They did manage to cover a lot of distance before that night, though it was tiring travel and the environment wasn't suited to any kind of intimate encounters by the time they did make camp. Arya curled up in Gendry's arms the way she had become accustomed to doing and fell asleep shortly after.


End file.
